Andrew Gross at Ranger Rants says that Nikolai Zherdev is still hot about something because when he came off the ice after practice today he smashed his stick in two against the wall leading to the dressing room.
In other practice news, Tortorella kept the new line of Avery, Gomez and Callahan together, meaning the new third line is Zherdev-Korpikoski-Naslund. Drury sat out practice to recover from yesterday's physical game.
Tortorella had this to say on the Rangers building an identity...
"We're trying to create an identity of how we're going to play and who we are," he said. "When you have an identity, it is what it is. I thought we did some really good things but it needs to be there all the time. It's consistency. When you become consistent in how you want to play, then you have your identity. I just want us to be a hard team to play against consistently. When I say hard, it's not about body checks all the time. It about taking a hit to make a play. It's about taking a hit and not retaliating. It's about protecting the puck. It's about making a simple play in the neutral zone. It's about playing the right way. Absolutely, it's tempo. We want to play an up-tempo game. We want to pressure. That is part of being a hard team to play against."
Tortorella also praised Girardi and Staal and spoke about Naslund still trying to get used to the new system.
...one thing the Ranger players are learning about Tortorella is that if you play hard and compete on every shift your ice time will increase dramatically. Just ask Callahan and Avery.
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