The Rangers Tribune

Callahan, Drury, Gomez Invited to US Camp

Ryan Callahan, Chris Drury, and Scott Gomez have all been invited to the United States Hockey team Camp in Chicago. Dru and Gomer have obviously been invited before, but this is a first for Cally.

More Later....
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Torts to be Assistant on US Team

USA hockey announced the full coaching staff for the men's United States Hockey team in the Winter Olympics in Vancouver. Here is the quote from the official olympic website:

"John Tortorella and Scott Gordon will be assistant coaches to Toronto Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson for the 2010 U.S. Olympic Men's Ice Hockey Team, USA Hockey has announced."

Congrats to Torts, Wilson, and Gordon.

More Later.....
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RFA Qualifying Offer Deadline...

was today at 3pm. Still no news if Callahan, Dubinsky, Korpikoski, or any other restricted free agents received any qualifying offers yet. We were told that forward Nikolai Zherdev was pitched an offer of $3.25 million from Sather, but Nik and his agent are yet to respond. Anyway, I cannot stress enough how vital it is to re-sign Brandon Dubinsky and Ryan Callahan. They are both key components in the team's future, and will flourish under Tortorella's system.

I am expecting to be hearing word of some offers either tonight or tomorrow, as there several RFA's that Glen Sather would like to bring back. I will be unavailable from 7:15 to around 9:45, so if anything happens between then, I will be unaware, but will report right when I get word. But for now, there has not been any news of offers. So we will have to hold our breath and wait for now.
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Scheduled Interview with Andrew Gross

A new feature that I am introducing on here for the coming season will be interviews with Ranger insiders. I will hope to have a new interview posted up every one to two months. To kick this new feature off, I will be interviewing Andrew Gross, author of Ranger Rants, and also writes for The Record. Andrew has kindly agreed to allow me to interview him after the free agent frenzy which is on Wednesday.

I decided to go with Andrew for the first interview on The Rangers Tribune because he is one of the most knowledgeable beat writers for the Blueshirts on the net. I will be asking his opinion on Sather's moves during the draft and free agency, his thoughts on next season's team, and what we should expect to see in 2009-10. We look forward to having a lot of fun with this new interview feature, and as always, we are thrilled to bring new features to our readers.

My target is Saturday, July 4th to have this interview posted up on the blog. I will keep updating readers on the status, but it will most likely be up by the weekend.

Prospect Camp Starts Monday

Beginning on Monday, the Rangers will be holding their annual prospect camp for the week. This camp will determine which prospects will be tried out in the preseason and given a shot at an NHL roster spot. As per Zipay at Blue Notes, there are 26 players showing up to camp. Here is the list of prospects:

Thirteen forwards---Ryan Bourque, Max Campbell, Chris Chappell, Paul Crowder, Craig Cunningham, Trent Daavettila, Evgeny Grachev, Chris Kreider, Matt Maccarone, Luke Pither, Justin Soryal, Derek Stepan, Ethan Werek.

Nine defensemen---Luke Curadi, Mike Del Zotto, Tysen Dowzak, Mitch Gaulton, Matt Gilroy, Ilkka Heikkinen, Sammy Klassen, Tomas Kundratek, Daniel Maggio

Four goalies---Keith Kinkaid, Ben Scrivens, Scott Stajcer, Travis Yonkman

The Rangers Official Website will most likely have footage from the camp up on the site, as they did last year.

Rangers Go for Speed in First Round

The TSN Broadcasters mentioned several times that Chris Kreider was the best skating prospect in the 2009 Entry Draft, and that could very well be the main reason why Sather and Company chose to draft Chris in the first round (19th overall) in Montreal last night. There is a complete scouting report for Kreider in my Draft Thread (below), but Kreider's best weapon in his arsenal is his skating. Scouts say it takes just one to two strides for Chris to hit full speed. Kreider has a fairly big frame and uses that to his advantage in the corners and in front of the net. Chris has decent dangling abilities as well.

The Entry Draft will continue today with rounds 2-7 being completed. At the day's end, I will be posting all of the Rangers' picks with a scouting report. Also, check out my draft thread in the post below, recapping all of the events from an exciting first round in Montreal last night.
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Slats to Take Another Run at Heatley?

Darren Dreger of TSN is reporting that the Rangers will attempt to take another run at acquiring forward Dany Heatley from the Ottawa Senators today. Sather was spotted last night talking to Senators General Manager, Bryan Murray, on the draft floor. It didn't seem like it went anywhere as Murray returned to his draft table and just shook his head at his front office who were seated at the table.



From what I am hearing, Ottawa wants three position players, and the Rangers don't want to give that much up. When asked if his high price would be lowered for Heatley to get rid of him, Murray responded by saying that he will not lower the standards, and will expect Heatley to be playing for his club next season if he cannot trade him.



So we will see how it plays out, but I still think there is a possibility that Murray lowers the price, because it has been dead, and he has not been receiving many offers. Murray isn't ready to admit it yet because he probably thinks he can still get three positional players. Maybe he will consider some picks, and the Rangers have seven more of those to offer.

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Sather Speaks Out

Courtesy of Steve Zipay at Blue Notes, here are some quotes from Glen Sather regarding free agent Nikolai Zherdev and some of the future defencemen that we can expect to see in Ranger Blue in coming seasons.

On Defensive Prospects: "who are knocking on the door: Gilroy, Sanguinetti, Del Zotto, Sauer and Potter...and we have to start making room for our young guys."

On Nikolai Zherdev: "He might not take the (qualifying) offer. His agent's kind of tough to get a straight answer from...It depends. he's still a young guy. He's got to be a little more determined."

Sather also continued to say that Blair Betts will probably be approached by the Edmonton Oilers, and some teams will be approaching Sjostrom as well. If neither are re-signed, it will hurt our penalty kill for sure, but it will make roster space for youngsters ready for the NHL level.
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Around the NHL: Kaberle Traded?

As per the Toronto Sun, Maple Leafs defencemen, Tomas Kaberle has been traded, but no further details have been released at this time. There were earlier reports that several teams put offers on the table for the all-star d-man, apparently one of them was taken by Toronto General Manager, Brian Burke.

Hopefully more details will be released in the morning...
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Redden to be Traded to Toronto?

A Canadian newspaper, The Globe and Mail, had a story today regarding the Toronto Maple Leafs and what moves their General Manager, Brian Burke is looking to make. Well, besides mentioning moving up in the draft to acquire Tavares, Burke said that trade talk has been going very well for him too. The newspaper followed that up by saying that there are two players believed to be on Burke's wanted list when considering trading, and one of those players was our very own Wade Redden. Here is a section taken from the article:

"There is belief the Maple Leafs have been zeroing in on New York Rangers defenceman Wade Redden and forward Peter Schaefer of the Boston Bruins.

But if the Leafs have interest in Redden, it means Burke must be serious about trading away either Tomas Kaberle or Pavel Kubina. The two veteran defenceman have no-trade contracts, but a window in which they can be traded opens when the draft commences on Friday."

This is very good news for Ranger fans if it actually happens. First off, the article is saying that the Leafs are approaching the Rangers about Redden, the circumstance is not the Rangers approaching Toronto about getting rid of Redden. So that means Burke is going to have to give us a return, and hopefully we can keep a package involving our youngsters out of this. It is possible that Burke believes that Redden has more value than both Kaberle and Kubina, but it is not probable. Kaberle, in my opinion, is the better player, but maybe Burke is just looking to get rid of him, and thinks Redden would be a good exchange.

Overall, I know as much as any of you know, and you can't predict what is going through a General Manager's mind. What I can tell you is that there is a good chance this trade could come closer to happening at the Draft this weekend, that is if Burke decides to meet with Ranger representatives, or even Glen Sather himself. But this is just another indication that the Rangers front office realizes that Wade and his contract need to go.

(Photo courtesy of Getty Images)