The Dark Ranger: Housecleaning Begins

Bio of TDR

TDR is a working professional in entertainment and is obsessed with the game of hockey. More fourteen years ago, this site emerged as a means (or an outlet) to tell some truth'isms about the game post-lockout, rather than the crud fed to us through knuckleheads like Jimmy Dolan and his lemmings universe. Today, there are a hundred Rangers sites and is thankful and grateful to all those that have come after him, but honorable thanks go to his fellow Dark-writers, Graying Mantis and J_Undisputed. And "Let's Go Rangers!"

Bio of General Ganz

General Ganz is a cynical yet well-informed student of the human spirit. He's a professional of sorts, with a post-graduate education, some experience working in real companies, and some limited athletic ability. The total small package. He got picked on a fair bit as a kid, and he experienced his first human-non-relation kiss in his teens. He also grew up on the other side of the tracks, thereby helping to cultivate a healthy contempt for dreamers and optimists whose rosy upbringing gave them something to smile about, even when "life produced lemons." Like it or not, his only mission is to point out the potholes you're lucky enough to miss on your drive to work. To find the blemish on your daughter's carefully-stitched (and not-yet-paid-for) wedding dress. To take that little smidgen of hope that your favorite hockey teams fill you with, and pour orange paint on it. Oh, and he is a Blueshirts fan, and takes most of his fashion direction from Ron Duguay (whose name he dropped as a way to close the deal on that first kiss).

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Housecleaning Begins

Rumors were flying yesterday that the Blueshirts were making a goalie-related move. Here it is: waive good-bye to Valley.

Meet your new back-up goalie -- Chad Johnson from the Hartford Wolfpack. He saw some preseason duty together with Matt Zaba.

Rangers also pick up Erik Christensen from the Ducks via waivers. No scoring but supposedly picked up to motivate Boyle and replace Brashear who is hurting.

According to this release, the guy has no game.

Other rumors have the Rangers trying to shop Higgins. Good luck. He'll find his game as soon as he leaves NYC.

UPDATE:

Link regarding the transactions here.

Check out the coach's comments:

"We'd like to send him down on conditioning, but I don't think we can because of our cap problems," Rangers coach John Tortorella said of Valiquette. "We want to get him down there playing and get his game back. Johnson gets to practice with us."

"It's a tough situation for Valley," Tortorella added. "He hasn't played a whole bunch. Sometimes your skills may diminish. It's just been a little bit of a struggle for him. He works his butt off on the ice, but he hasn't played much and I think that's hurt him. If he goes through, he gets an opportunity to play some minutes and get his game back."

Precisely the type of comments you would expect to hear for a reference after you have failed to meet your former employer's expectations. Also, aren't the reasons he has not played much include the fact that the team already has slipped out of the playoff hunt because it stopped scoring (thanks to failure to set lines and lack of talent) and the coach passed up opportunities to use Valiquette, a decision which has been reinforced because Valiquette has been horriblewhen he has played.

Torts is being a bit disingenuous to be nice. For example, Valley is already on target to play about 18 games -- more than any other season. The real problem is that his goaltending ability has fallen off the cliff. Go here for his stats. His GPA has gone from 2.19 in 2007-08 to its current 3.74 in 2 years while his minutes have been increasing. His save percentage has eroded from a respectable 92% to something of an AHL player -- 85%. Thus, his own play has shown that he is not an NHL goalie right now.

---The Graying Mantis

3 comments:

J_UndisputedWednesday, December 02, 2009 3:16:00 PM
It's about time. Valiquettes spidey sense was for sh*t. I've been high on Johnson since the preseason. Granted half those preseason teams were made of ahl'ers, but his glove had seemed to be magic and he was even glove shots through traffic. The only bad goal I saw him really give up was about few seconds into his ery first shift. I'll call it jitters and adjusting to the pro speed of the game.

Christensen seems to score some decent goals in a shootout, but other than that I'll willing to be he's another softy.
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The Dark RangerThursday, December 03, 2009 5:25:00 PM
Depending on how all games pre-Olympic break goes, it will determine whether or not this is our re-building year. I am also a fan of Johnson -- I do think they will be looking to trade a package of one hot prospect (i.e. Parentheu, AHL-er Sanguinetti)a Chris Higgins and dumping a Rozzy into the deal for a sniper and blueliner. we will see...

tdr
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J_UndisputedThursday, December 03, 2009 5:41:00 PM
In my head, I hear Sather pleading the rebuild excuse packaging and getting back guys at the end of their contracts so he can negotiate lower ones and free up enough cash to chase another high priced free agent at the beginning of next season and to accomdate for any drops in the cap. If anyone sticks from a trade, I think it will be another Rucinsky type player.
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