Wednesday, January 12, 2011

Cross Your Fingers

What the Rangers are not going to say about trading for Wojtek Wolski is that while they are talking about what it takes to "correct" what is supposedly wrong with his game; they really do need him to work out.

At 6'3 what Wolski gives the Rangers is some youthful size that the current forward prospect pool does not have much of. Evgeny Grachev is progressing at a pace much slower than the Rangers were hoping for.

The Rangers though no fault of their own have seen their forward prospect pool take a huge beating. Losing Alexi Cherepanov from the 2007 draft was a big blow but the 2010-11 season is turning into a nightmare.

Ethan Werek has been out since December 10th due to a wrist injury that is now expected to keep him out possibly for another 10 days. Missing a month hurts but when you have not decided on whether to sign him then it makes it a bigger gamble.

Andrew Yogan has yet to play a game this season due to shoulder surgery and might not get to play until the middle of next month if he gets to play at all. Randy McNaught was shut down for the season after just 8 games when they had to insert pins into his ankle.

While we have high hopes for Carl Hagelin, Roman Horak, Ryan Bourque and Christian Thomas; it is really important that the Rangers can turn Wolski into a contributor even if it is at the same levels of production Wolski averaged with the Avalanche.

--------------------------------------------------------------

David Toews (NYI 2008 3rd) was the only prospect to see action on Tuesday night and it was yet another heartbreaking loss for Toew's Brandon Wheat Kings as they fell to the WHL's best team the Saskatoon Blades 5-4 in the shootout. 

Toews registered his 10th goal of the season as Brandon make a great third period comeback from down 4-1 only to fall short. Got to feel bad for Toews as while he is doing his best, it is hard when you are playing on a last place team.

-------------------------------------------------------------------

The Kamloops Blazers and WHL announced that the "ban" on Kamloops Daily News reporter Gregg Drinnan. Now Drinnan has been a huge help showing us the ropes on how to become a better reporter so there very much is a bias here from us. 

The WHL as well as the Kamloops Blazers helped give hockey a black eye that was not needed by (a) the Blazers violating the WHL's media policy and (b) the WHL's failure to act faster in forcing an end to this clear violation of league policy. 

The story was covered all over North America as media members rallied to support Drinnan. What is sad is all WHL Commissioner Ron Robison really needed to do is pick up a telephone on December 22 (day of banning) and tell the Blazers to lift the ban immediately. 

(Wolski courtesy of NHL Media.com)

1 comment:

Ed said...

Jess,

Might want to proof that last article - it should say the Drinnan ban was lifted and the black eye they gave hockey was NOT needed?

Ed