1. The Rangers have been trending downward over the last week or so and they had the carpet pulled out from underneath them on Monday in Pittsburgh, but it shouldn’t take one really bad loss for what is left of the Ranger beat writers start calling for Tanner Glass recall as Brooksie attempted to opine yesterday. Last week, Glass told the Hartford Courant that he’s “hopeful of getting the next promotion from the Rangers or someone else,” which to me sounds almost like he was publicly requesting a trade. As far as the Rangers go and to put it kindly, Glass isn’t much more than a training camp body at this point in his career. While he offers “intangibles” which other players can’t or aren’t willing to do, he’s just another old school enforcer that the game has on passed by. I wish him luck with whatever he winds up doing after Hartford, but I’d be shocked if he was called back up to New York.
2. The expansion draft is going to come up a bit more frequently in this space as we move along through the season and attempt to figure out not only who the Rangers will expose and any surprises that may pop up along the way as well as players the Vegas Golden Knights are going to take. Raanta should be on a very short list when it comes to goaltending as there isn’t plethora of NHL backups that could potentially become full time starters. Tampa has an interesting goaltending situation with Bishop and Vasilevskiy. Bishop is on a full no move that expires this season so he could be trade fodder for someone. He won’t come cheaply to an inquiring team.
3. There’s been a prevailing rumor about Derek Stepan since the beginning of the season that doesn’t seem to be going away and an USA today article from Monday gave that rumor some additional legs. I can easily shoot down this rumor with some logic, but lets play along. The article says that Stepan would be moved for defensive help. The Blues immediately jump to mind especially with the Shattenkirk rumors floating around and there is a need for a top 6 center in St. Louis. That would put a bit of pressure on the Rangers to quickly re-sign their bonafide top line center in Zibanejad as well as Shattenkirk to new contracts. Hayes has done well in Zibanejad’s absence, but why mess with the Rangers depth if that’s the one thing going for them right now?
4. Yesterday was the day that facebook officially infiltrated their way into the comments. I’ll see what I can do about this in the coming days and weeks as this time of the year isn’t usually the best time for customer service. Again, I want to reiterate that I’m very displeased about the change and I’m well aware of what it could mean for the future of the blog.
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