Every good captain needs an assistant, and that’s why Toronto Maple Leafs forward Joffrey Lupul and New York Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist have been named assistant captains for the 2012 NHL All-Star Game in Ottawa.
Lundqvist will join the team of captain Daniel Alfredsson of the Ottawa Senators, while Lupul will be part of the team led by captain Zdeno Chara of the Boston Bruins.
Thanks to some amazing chemistry with Phil Kessel, Lupul is enjoying the best season of his eight-year NHL career. He currently ranks fourth among all League scorers with 51 points (20 goals, 31 assists) in 46 games.
Thanks to HBO’s 24/7, New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella is now easily recognized as one of the premier no-nonsense bench bosses in the NHL. Players and fans respect him for his honesty and his unwillingness to put up with crap from anyone—even if it is the owner of the Rangers.
Following the team’s impressive 3-0 victory over the visiting Nashville Predators, Rangers owner James Dolan held an impromptu postgame press conference Tuesday night and said the Rangers were “pretty close” to winning a Stanley Cup.
Despite the NHL’s best efforts to avoid a ratings war with rival programming, the event managed to pull just a 2.4 overnight rating, down from 2.8 last season, which was in prime time.
In what has quickly turned into one of the best ideas commissioner Gary Bettman and the NHL have come up with in quite some time, the fifth annual Winter Classic between the New York Rangers and Philadelphia Flyers continued the streak of presenting another compelling outdoor hockey game between two great teams.
Well, at least Sean Avery was around long enough to be involved in HBO’s filming of 24/7.
It was made known Friday morning that the New York Rangers decided to put Avery on the waiver wire for the second time this season.
Avery, the notorious pest of the NHL, hasn’t played since Dec. 10, missing nine straight games, and has played in only 15 games since he was recalled from Connecticut of the American Hockey League in early November. He has three goals, a plus-2 rating and 21 penalty minutes.
The NHL isn’t quite like the NFL in that goal celebrations in hockey tend to be much more mild than the usual over-the-top parades that guys in football throw every time they enter the end zone.
However, New York Rangers foward Artem Anisimov got a little overexcited when he scored a shorthanded goal midway through the second period to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning. After burying the biscuit, Anisimov turned around to face the Tampa Bay net, held his stick as if it were a rifle and proceed to “fire shots” toward Lightning goaltender Mathieu Garon.
HBO’s Emmy-Award-winning 24/7 series is back on the ice.
After last season’s successful 24/7 Penguins/Capitals series, the network will now cover the fierce rivalry between the New York Rangers and the Philadelphia Flyers, culminating in their Winter Classic game on Monday, Jan. 2 at Citizens Bank Park in Philadelphia.
The first episode of 24/7 Flyers/Rangers will air Wednesday, Dec. 14.
New York Rangers head coach John Tortorella would probably just call it a coincidence if you brought it to his attention, but the facts are the facts: The Rangers have been undefeated since they re-called Sean Avery back on Oct. 31.
Since then, the Rangers have been the hottest team in the NHL, having won six straight games over nearly a two-week span in which they have outscored their opponents 23-9.
Yeah, it’s true that Avery’s presence and the Rangers’ winning ways probably is a coincidence, but for a guy who was deemed not good enough to be on the roster before the season, he sure has been making a case for a spot on the team now.
Following the Sharks‘ 5-2 loss to the Rangers, Thornton made the blunder of calling Torts’ team “soft.”
“They were probably the softest team we played on the trip. We should have had these two points,” Thornton said in the midst of the Sharks’ six-game road swing.
“We played some good teams, and I think we probably should have beat these guys, to be honest with you.”
