The Stealth's run continued yesterday with the fabulous signing of Marian Gaborik, sniper extrodinaire, and then splashed with the signing of the ultimate Goon of Hockey, Donald Brashear. Win some, lose some. Fortunately the win here is overpowering and the loss is minimal. Barring injuries, Marian Gaborik is the best option that was available for the Rangers. Now we need a center, to get him the puck. Looking at the Rangers centers on the roster tells me they have to go out and get a center whose prime roll will be to pass the puck to Gabby.
As for Brashear, I guess after Orr left for Toronto the Rangers felt a need to toughen up. Well Brashear does that. What else he can do is questionable, though to be fair, Orr averaged about 4 minutes a game and its tough to perform on 4 minutes a game. Maybe Tortorella will give the guy more ice time. Surely Gaborik will be getting lots of ice time. Maybe Brashear will ride shotgun for Gabby.
Anyway, there is still plenty of time to shore up the center position and the Stealth seems to be on a roll right now so let's not stand in his way. At least we have our sniper, now let's fill in the rest of the ranks or is it blanks? It's a good start.
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Signing Brashear is a disgrace! I don't want to hear any more BS about "putting on the Ranger sweater and all the pride that goes with it." From anyone! Including Messier.
Even our past enforcers of note (Fotiu, Domi, Kocur, etc.) had a level of class. Brashear is a thug. I will boo him opening night, and remain seated if he does anything on the ice. An embarrassing signing from an embarrassing GM.
Signing Brashear is a disgrace! I don't want to hear any more BS about "putting on the Ranger sweater and all the pride that goes with it." From anyone! Including Messier.
Even our past enforcers of note (Fotiu, Domi, Kocur, etc.) had a level of class. Brashear is a thug. I will boo him opening night, and remain seated if he does anything on the ice. An embarrassing signing from an embarrassing GM.
Brashear is getting no support around here. He's at the end of a infamous career and he's gifted a huge 2-year contract by Tomato Face Sather. Utterly foolish. If Torts signed off on this he's a fool too.
The kind of team toughness that I have been lamenting the lack of, seems to be squarely in Tortorella's sights. This makes me very happy.
http://www.newsday.com/sports/hockey/rangers/ny-spstaple1912983054jul18,0,1123430.column
I will try to accommodate the fact that Brashear is on NYR, as the shock has now worn off.
As Torts said:
'"We're a soft team," he said. "I don't think we're physical enough on the ice, and I think [the players] want to have a say in what we do. And it's got to change. It's a disease if you let it go on."'
Amen.
It's obvious that some of the players don't play with enough of a chip on their shoulder, and don't learn from the example set by guys like Callahan. So the next step is to try to institutionalize it and make it part of the team's culture.
Then, maybe we will see toughness that puts Brashear's brand of thuggery well into the background, and hopefully we see little of his buffoonery.