Monday Monday

School Daze

Fresh off the Ranger's 3-1 win over Tampa Bay there is not much to report on other than the weekly USA Today/USA Hockey Magazine Men's College Hockey Poll

For Ranger prospects it was another good week as Michigan with Carl Hagelin moved up to number 2 from number 3 after they swept Boston University. Billy Ryan and his Maine Black Bears also moved up one from 13 to 12 after their sweep of Northeastern.

Jordan Foote and Michigan Tech split their weekend series with then number 1 North Dakota so they moved up one as well from 15 to 14. It is great to see hard work rewarded and down the road Ranger fans will reap the benefits of this kind of hard work.

When you are building a winner it helps to bring in players who come from winning programs. Winners breed more winning and that is what the Rangers are building here.

Prospect of the Month

I tried to give you guys a chance to pick the name for our Prospect of the Month award but got really no serious responses so it was left to me. I thought about those who I have covered, those who I have have the pleasure of talking to and talking about when the idea hit me.

Last year I got to spend perhaps the most informative 3 hours of my hockey writing career talking to a true legend in Andy Bathgate. For those of you who do not know Mister Bathgate he was the captain of the Rangers during some of the leanest of times.

Andy Bathgate's story is best told here and I encourage those of you who do not know about this Hall of Famer to take the time to read about his career. However this is not even about Andy Bathgate but about someone else.

During our talk Andy Bathgate talked about another former Ranger who despite offering some strong credentials has not been elected to the Hockey Hall of Fame. We are talking about Dean Prentice who played for the Rangers from 1952 until being traded away during the 1962-63 season.

Actually I will let John Halligan (NHL Historian and contributor to the Blueshirt Bulletin) do the talking here (from Rangers.com): "He is, in the opinion of many, the best player NOT in the Hockey Hall of Fame. Dean Sutherland Prentice played 22 seasons in the National Hockey League, half of them with the Rangers as the workmanlike left wing on the team’s top line of that era."

Take it by the numbers as a Ranger; Prentice is 14th on both most goals (186) and points (422) in 666 games in Broadway Blue. Prentice was a hard working player who even after his playing days were over continued to work hard in helping young players follow in his footsteps to the NHL.

Prentice was hard working, he never quit and fought his way to the NHL and that are the qualities Prospect Park wants to see from today's Ranger prospects so please join me in celebrating both the past and present of the New York Rangers as our monthly prospect award will be known as the DEAN PRENTICE PROSPECT OF THE MONTH.

It may not be the Hockey Hall of Fame but Ranger fans do not forget those who gave 100% every night.


(Dean Prentice's picture courtesy of NewYorkRangers.com)