Another Year is Here But

On the eve of the 2009-10 New York Ranger's training camp; one can just imagine what is going though the minds of those who are attending this camp. It is a mixture of emotions ranging from nerves to joy but come Saturday when John Tortorella and Mike Sullivan blow the first whistle the emotions just might turn to horror at what they are going to reportedly endure.

In a way the Ranger prospects who attended the July prospect development camp got a peek at what awaits them as several of them told us how the coaches "gassed" them. If you don't know what being "gassed" is like then picture being pushed to the brink of exhaustion and then shoved not pushed over the edge of exhaustion.

During the off-season, we joked about John Tortorella being the next coming of Gunny Hartman from the movie "Full Metal Jacket." Tortorella's reputation as running a "boot camp" for a training camp is well known so it is going to be fun to see how Tortorella lives up to his word.

See what really needs to be shown is that playing time is actually going to be determined by who works the hardest not by his salary. Now we know that many a Ranger fan is pumped by the thought of John Tortorella's words but as someone who has been a Ranger fan since the 1960's words need to be backed by actions.

It is very hard for us to believe that the Rangers would actually bench the higher paid players or even cut them to Hartford. This is the salary cap era where many a supposed weapon that a coach thinks he has is really does not exist.

Covering the prospects like we have every year we keep being told that the kids will get a real chance. In most cases the prospects have to be perfect, someone has to get hurt or there is no other option before they actually get a chance.

Right off the top of our head, Artem Anisimov, Dane Byers, Michael Sauer, Corey Potter, Bobby Sanguinetti and Matt Gilroy are NHL ready so if anything less than 3 of these are not on the opening day roster then we will have major doubts about the words of Tortorella.

One other thing to remember about "Gunny" Tortorella; in FMJ Gunny Hartman wound up getting killed by Private Pyle after pushing him way over the edge. Tortorella might remember that too.

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Traverse City is over and the Ranger prospects finished 3rd after beating the Blue's prospects 5-4. If you want to give a grade to this particular group of prospects then it has to be a B-.

The Rangers of course are going to tell you that the kids played great, that the draft picks were wonderful and that they were dominant but forgive us if we disagree. The best players for the Rangers at Traverse City were the free agents Daniel Bartek and Luke Walker as well as 2009 6th round pick Roman Horak.

Michael Del Zotto's job is to score and he failed to put up a single point which is unacceptable if he is going to get that "long look" the Rangers keep talking about. If anything Del Zotto pressed and made the case that he does need more seasoning before joining the Rangers.

Evgeny Grachev came through against the Blues with those 2 goals but he really did not put much else up. Grachev shows all the signs of becoming an impact player but we will sound like a broken record and strongly urge not only caution but also to temper expectations this season.

Grachev is just 19 and by being patient and letting Grachev develop slowly while working on his game in Hartford will pay bigger dividends than expecting him to make the jump this season. Let him play 1st line in Hartford instead of 3rd or 4th in New York.

We do have to also prop out Ethan Werek as his all around performance strongly suggests that the Rangers do have a winner here. 2-2-4 along with a +2. Werek is going to get stronger and make an excellent scoring winger down the road.

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We have heard bits and pieces as to who the Rangers have invited from Traverse City to the main training camp. The easy ones are the draft picks as well as those who already have a contract.

Rumors have it that Daniel Bartek and Luke Walker were the only ones of the free agents who were invited to the training camp. We do not have independent confirmation from the Rangers or the players themselves but we heard the prospects are already back in New York.

We also believe that given everything that John Tortorella is trying to do with this Ranger team that we expect before the weekend is over that the Rangers will start making cuts. By the time the Rangers face the Bruins on Tuesday that instead of 55-60 in camp there will be about 30.

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If you have either a Twitter or Facebook account we just wanted to let you know that you can follow us at both. On twitter it is @theprospectpark while on facebook it is Jess Rubenstein.

Dan who has taken over for Dubi at the Blueshirt Bulletin can be followed on twitter @NYRBlueBulletin and on facebook at Blueshirt Bulletin.

Join us and say hi willya?

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Never forgive and never forget 9/11/2001

(Daniel Bartek courtesy of the New York Rangers)