Mid Week Catch Up

Ryan Hillier in our eyes has locked up a contract with the Rangers with his play this season. The Rangers 2006 3rd round draft pick has finally turned the corner on the consistency his career has been missing.

Case in point was his efforts Wednesday evening against the Gatineau Olympiques as Hillier scored 2 goals (including the game winner) to help lead his Halifax Mooseheads to a 4-1 win.

For Hillier it was his prospect leading 26th and 27th goals of the season and it earned him the player of the game away from the home Gatineau media.

We have been looking for Hillier to respond like this to show that he can play a full consistent season. That has been the biggest concern about Hillier as his previous seasons have been one hot half a season with a cold one.

Thanks to Hillier's efforts, the Mooseheads moved back into first place of the QMJHL's Eastern Division after their 3rd straight win. With 23 games remaining our goal for Hillier still stands as we would like to see him step up his game to make a run at 50 goals, we know it is a reach but we believe if Hillier scores 50 goals the Mooseheads become a serious contender for the Memorial Cup.

Prospect of the Week

Our goal here is to expect the best from Ranger prospects so we do not want to award a player of the week just so we can say we can. Having said that it we are not going to award prospect of the week for the past week because none of the Ranger prospects stood out as worthy.

We hope someone steps up this week as we want to see these kids do well.

Answering your comments

First off let me apologize to those who took the time to respond. I do not get many comments so I got used to not looking but I do catch up so here is first my thanks for reading and my responses.

Harlem asks

Question, is there a site like the Rangers used to have up through last year with complete US and abroad timely Ranger prospect statistics.

No there is not and it is one of the reasons I was hoping the Rangers would keep control of their website. I liked that the Rangers stepped up their efforts to offer better prospect coverage after Dubi and the Blueshirt Bulletin got the ball rolling during the lockout year.

I have wanted to try to set up my own spreadsheet so I could keep better track myself but my Excel skills are very bad so I have not figured out how to set up all the various formulas. If anyone can offer my assistance I would not say no.

The Dark Ranger

Whatever he said before yesterday's game seemed to work. A great defense of Tom Renney -- though, I am not such the fan -- but you make a good point that with players locked in to these contracts, there is only one place to point the finger. Coach Clueless.

TDR you are right you are not the fans I was addressing as those I was talking about are so blinded by their hatred of Renney that they look for reasons to trash him. At the same time I am not going to be blinded by a win against the Thrashers who have actually quit on the season.

I will not be blinded either by a win on Brian Leetch night either as to me the real test as to whether the Rangers are serious about playing for the coach they claim to love and support will be after the All-Star break when the Rangers have to play 4 road games against playoff contenders in 6 days.

I am not saying that the Rangers need to win all 4 games but the effort must be there from the team. If the Rangers give the kind of effort they did against the Thrashers they should gain some points.

But if they come back with no points then kiss the season and Tom Renney good bye as both will be lost.