The Rangers have also touched down in Europe, carrying 26 players on their roster. Before October 4th, they will have to cut two from their team, but they do get two more exhibition games against SC Bern and Metallurg Magnitogorsk before having to make any more decisions.The new looking team has quite a few options when it comes to scoring, which comes from a lot of the new faces. The projected top line of Naslund-Gomez-Zherdev does have quite a bit of expectations coming into the year, but they should be accented well by a good offensive blueline and a number of options for a decent second line.
The Rangers look like they will be a good team to choose from for your hockey pool draft. The possibility of a big breakout year for Nikolai Zherdev is very tempting on paper, but how high can he go? If the Rangers get the scoring they are looking for, there is no reason why Henrik Lundqvist couldn't win 40 games, which makes him a bluechip keeper for the year.
| Forwards | Defense | Goaltenders |
| Scott Gomez | Michal Rozsival | Henrik Lundqvist |
| Nikolai Zherdev | Wade Redden | Steve Valiquette |
| Chris Drury | Dan Girardi | Miika Wiikman |
| Markus Naslund | Paul Mara | |
| Brandon Dubinsky | Marc Staal | |
| Nigel Dawes | Dimitri Kalinin | |
| Dan Fritsche | Brian Fahey | |
| Fredrik Sjostrom | Corey Potter | |
| Patrick Rissmiller | ||
| Petr Prucha | ||
| Aaron Voros | ||
| Ryan Callahan | ||
| Blair Betts | ||
| Colton Orr | ||
| Lauri Korpikoski |
With the 26 players they have currently in camp, their salary cap number only sits at $57.3 million, a mere $600,000 over the salary cap ceiling. Likely cuts to Brian Fahey, Corey Potter and Miika Wiikman will have them safe from salary cap troubles in no time. The thought of picking Mats Sundin should have moved past the memory of Rangers fans, as this should be the go-forward line-up through the season. It would have been one mess of a puzzle to figure out who would be on the way out if Sundin came to town.
No comments:
Post a Comment