…the same.  No big news out of Rangers camp, so let’s keep the e-mails flowing.

From Teresa in Clifton Park, NY

After digesting everything that happened in that series, I still feel unfulfilled and I can’t decide if the season was a disappointment or not.

However, I must say that one thing is abundantly clear.  I know this is nothing new, but the officiating has got to be more consistent.  I know calls will be missed or blown.  It happens to every team and the great teams work through it, but when things are called one way in one game and then called completely different in the next, as a fan, it is frustrating.  I can’t imagine what it is like for the players.  I thought that maybe it was me and my Ranger tinted glasses that were seeing this, but watching the conference finals games, it is not just me.  They put Dallas down 2 men for a roughing call that happens almost after each play at the goal and to send only one guy from one team is just ridiculous.  Tytuin takes down Crosby and it is called; Gil takes down Jagr, looked almost identical and no call.  Make up your mind; is it a panalty or not?  Don’t tell me they missed it; I don’t buy it.

Jagr gets his fair share of time in the box, but the new stars need to be penalized for their actions too.  Malkin can slew foot Mara and elbow Briere and not get a call against him.  I can’t discuss Crosby because until he stands up and plays, who knows what he should get called for.  The NHL is setting themselves up for a league run by spoiled stars who will alienate the fans of the other 29 teams.

From Andy in Nottingham, England

For me we need to resign: Avery, my favourite Rangers player.
Roszival, but I agree with your sentiments $3million is a maximum for me.
Mara, he’ll come pretty cheap I think.

For me if you don’t resign Shanahan, Jagr and Straka, as well as people like Strudwick, Backman etc, we’ll be looking at about $10-15million to spend. That could be used to bring two top end players, a winger like Hossa and the Top line Dman that we lack. I felt it was so obvious that we were poor defensively because we haven’t got that “big name” dman. We need to get either someone like Campbell, if it is him I’ll be happy, who will be great going forward and setting up the transitional play and a quarterback for our PP, or someone in the Boynton mould, doesn’t take up massive amount of cap space and will hit the body hard and just be a stay at home Dman presence. Nick played in Nottingham during the lockout year and was the 2nd best defenceman I have ever seen, behind Jimmy Paek, who also played for Nottingham Panthers.

My personal opinion would be to try and entice the likes of a Malkin, Hossa, Kovalchuk to come to Rangers for a decent, but fair, salary, between $6-9million and use the other on one or two solid Dmen.

Cheers guys, look forward to hearing more from you in the off season.

From Greg in Ridgefield, CT

I know its just after a tough loss but i figure ill look to next season instead of looking back on this one.  I personally think Jags, Avery, Mara and I guess Valiquette should be resigned.  Maybe Straka.  And if Jags doesnt come back, Id like to see Shanny back, even if he is just used for all of 10 minutes a game.

Alright here we go again. I gave a few days to let the last set of e-mails digest, now here come some more. Some of these are older and some more recent.

Chris in Manhasset, NY

The young guys: they are a necessity for a team. You saw the rengers in the early 00’s when we gave up our draft picks for old dudes and we did not function. with them in the lineup we win.

Shanahan: the only player on the rangers to have more goals that assists (besides callahan)

we need players like those who can score and not just pass and sometimes score.

Tom renny: It may seem odd that I chose him. He is still technically a ranger bus wears a suit and tie to work instead of a jersey. If it werent for him some players might not be here today. He stands behind every player. If it were some other coach, they might have gotten rid of Marek Malik when he had is schnanaginns of disrespect. Renny put the perfect lines together, but it came late in the season. The lines work perfectly together.

The rangers will be a dibocale come free agency. We want to resign jagr but he might want a lot and we can not accomidate. we only pay for half of jagr’s salary and the Washington cap’s pay for the other half. When we broke off talks with Avery, his skill improved so much. I think he wanted to show that the team needs him. Shanahan will be a free agent and straka too. Malik will be one to.

We need to resign Kasparitius back. He was a great big defenceman who played the body. he was great! When he started to score goals, he was sent to the minors. He fought which was a positive for morale and he had a mullet which is lacking on Jagr’s end.

Jagr is a goof. He looks stupid with his jersey tucked in, and he also has the biggest hockey pants in the NHL. he is also the fattest player on the rangers.

Prucha was great in his return. He showed that he had speed which most of the players are lacking.

Mike T. in Syracuse, NY

Hey guys. Tough loss on sunday. Looking ahead to the off season. Tht top priority is to get jagr to stay. With that being said I don’t believe the angers should make a big splash this off season in the FA market. Ill tell you why, next year Marain Gaborik becomes a UFA, a year after that Rick Nash, Illy Kovalchuck, and Vincent Lecavier all become free agents. All these players are unlikely to re sign with their respective teams and by just getting one of them will make the rangers cup contenders for years. Signing a Hossa this season will only restrict the rangers chances of getting any of those players down the road

Marc in Oyster Bay, NY

Okay, so season over for our Rangers, plenty more hockey to watch, but without the gut ache this time… I could write 10 pages here but I’ll try to keep it short. We all know the obvious players that have to go, and these changes I believe can only help a core of developing youngsters.

But their are complications and I believe Jaromir Jagr is the biggest one. I heard your comments about him and although in principal I agree, we can’t afford to employ him full time, only for him to play when he wants to. The way we laud him you would believe that JJ has won cups with every team he’s been on or the past 10 years… no. He’s undoubtedly made the Rangers competitive again, he’s also made those around him better, and given invaluable experience to Dubi etc., but it’s time now to lets these kids fly on their own. I can’t say that I have an alternative plan, I can’t say that we’ll undoubtedly be better without him, but I think that while he stays we’ll be stalled at this level. His brand of hockey, the way he plays his position for me is stale, it’s old and although was once creative and still produces to a certain degree, it’s getting less with every year. Let’s take the Pitts series as an example… every time the commentator says Crosby is breaking out of the zone I’m worried… every time the TV says Malkin is on the move I’m worried. When they tell me Jagr is making his way up the wing, I’m confident that most times he’ll be cut off on the boards by the huge dman that’s been assigned to him or he’ll be forced to make a bad puck move just inside the line by the back checker that has caught up with him and his linemates pretty easily. And do we assume that if we resign Jagr, then Straka is an immediate resign? Rosival also? SCARY!!!!

If he does come back, then fine, just remember it’s a full time job Jags, families, kids, supporters everywhere, pay large amounts of their paycheck to see wins every game, not just from March on. The whole “he’ll wake up in February” was the rap I got on Drury in December. I didn’t believe it then and guess what, he slept late. And really, where did it get us? It may have been smart for Jagr to rest his body thru the season doing as little as he could get away with but to no avail and that’s the bottom line.

Now I’m getting upset again… Pitts take chances with their personal. They are letting the young players play, sure they traded some youth to get Hossa, but at this point it looks smart, we’ll see how far they get and they can surely afford to sign him.

It’ll be an interesting off season for sure, but for now I’ll enjoy the hockey we have left.
Keep those e-mails and comments coming.

Well if you haven’t gotten a chance to listen to the final season episode of the NYRangerscast, or just didn’t to the end of the very long episode, than you may have missed some things. First and foremost, Steve and I got a chance to thank all of you for your support this season in our Parting Shots, but in case you haven’t heard that yet…thank you. This season has been tremendous for us and that is all because we have fans like us that care about the team and our show.

Over the off season, Steve and I will be coming out with two podcasts a month. No particular time on when those will be throughout the month, but we will cover big free agent deals, trades, and the draft. The Rangers season is year round and so is your coverage from the NYRangerscast.com.

Now, even with over an hour and a half episode today, we didn’t get a chance to read the many listner e-mails we got after the Rangers got eliminated. Many of these e-mails made very good points about what the Rangers should do and can do this off season. Steve and I expressed our views on these topics in the show, but we wanted to post some of the e-mails right here so we can get the conversation flowing with everyone. So here are some of the e-mails and the points some listeners have made, hopefully the points that are made will make you want to comment in the section below.

From Nick at Colby College

What a devastating way to go out, guess the pep talk I gave Aves and Shanny on the phone didn’t work. I have a few questions about the Rangers blueliners and just wanted to see what you think. First of all who is more important to the team, Mara or Roszival? I would say Mara but with Rozy there is the whole Jagr issue. Secondly what about a player like Andrew Hutchinson, he was solid with the Canes and did a heck of a job down in Hartford, we both know he can do a better job than Strudwick and he’s a tested player. Also Greg Moore traveled between Hartford and the big club all the time, what are the odds that he lands a roster spot out of training camp. If all else fails bring the ironman Darius Kasparaitis back, always a good option.

From Richard S. in Chico, CA

I think the team needs to be blown up in a sense. I dont think they are anywhere near ready to win the cup. Enough talent but not enough drive. I want to say not enough heart, but I think that they have enough veteran players that they can make anyone believe.

I think they need to not resign Straka, Shanahan, Strudwick, Mara, Malik, and Rosival.

They need to try to trade or release Hollweg and maybe even Prucha.

They need to resign Jagr and Avery and give betts a raise with an extension.

The biggest thing, besides resigning Jagr and Avery, that this team can do in the off season is to make a huge push for Brian Campbell if he doesn’t resign with the Sharks.

I think that Baranka and Pock need to be moved up from Hartford, and with the addition of Campbell it would be a pretty young defensive corps, but one that is going to strive and not get tired or out hustled by anyone.

As far as the rest of the front lines,

I like the forth line look of Orr-Betts-Sjostrom. They hustle and they throw pretty big hits. and as long as Avery comes back this team wont have to rely on orr to fight every one in the whole league.

Here is where it gets interesting. The minors for this team is where the future is. With guys like Immonen, Korpikoski, Anisimov, Moore, and Maybe even Cherepanov. That is a lot of potential and when you add in Pock and Baranka I feel ok about it. Like you guys said, every time these guys were pulled up from the minors they didnt look lost, the contributed and looked comfortable.

By saying bye bye to shanahan, straka and adding a couple of guys from harford they have the potential to get 30 years younger in 5 seconds. I know we loose a lot of goals and assists in one fell swoop, but this team isn’t even gonna come close to the cup if it keeps its current makeup.

From Scummy

Well, it was a valiant effort, kind of. With all of the bold garuntee’s by Hank and Paul Mara, all the pre-season chatter, this should be an extremely disappointing season but honestly, I think it was the best yet(since the lockout at least). Think about it, a lot of roster changes, what with Avery playing his first full season as a Ranger, Drury and Gomez playing in their first season(s), Duby, Dawes, and Staal comming up it’s rough having that many different faces… You could really compair this team to the Rangers from last season, but I personally like to look at it more as the Penguins from last season. I mean, let’s face it, unless Philly plays near perfect, Pitt has a real shot at winning the Cup this year. That being said, the Rangers started to show the potential we’ve all expected in that Devil series and at points in that Pitt series, but obviously the Penguins are a stacked bordering dynasty franchise.

Aside from that half rant/wall of text onto the more important issue. All of this pending on, of course, the fact that these guys actually want to come back. I say, keep Shanny in that Selanne role as I believe it was Eric had said. Brendan Shannahan can pick it up, he may be getting old but if he can savor his energy for the 08-09 post season, he can be potent.
Avery goes without saying… as long as he’s not asking some insane ammount, he BELONGS in New York. He’s more than a pest as we all know, much more than a simple pest.
Jagr on the other hand… do we really want another season of Jagr? I mean for sure he absolutely tried willing this team though Pittsburgh but in game 5 he was a non-factor, not a single solitary shot on net. Either due to Rutuu’s harassment or the Pitt fans booing him. He’s an amazing and outstanding player, but he’s possibly the biggest headcase I’ve every seen. Do we really want that dragging us down? Straka is on the same boat, he’s a great player to have but he seems to miss quite a few opportunities, for whatever reason. In my opinion Jagr/Straka are a package deal. And I’m of the firm belief that its all or nothing with those two, I’d rather nothing. Be honest with you, I wouldn’t be surprised to see #68 in a Penguins uniform. Don’t ask why, its just a weird feeling.
Now on the defensive side, it may sound extreme at first but… get rid of them all. Bring in a couple big Jeff Beukeboom esque stay at home knock your teeth into your throat defenseman. And, a quaterback type D man. Sounds easy on paper but its what we need. Keeping Tyutin alone is a big question mark. Maybe keep Mara, but we’ve seen it time and time again as Ranger fans, this team succeeds with a frightning in your face defenseman.

More Of Your E-Mails to Come….But let these digest and have your opinion heard below in the comment section, or e-mail us at hosts@nyrangerscast.com

No need to fear, we have not forgotten about doing a final 2007-2008 season podcast. We did, however, want to take some time to decompress so that when we do the episode, it’s not filled with rash, in-the-heat-of-the-moment, takes and analysis.

Adding to the delay is a travel day for Eric today, as he makes his way back to his hometown of Cincinnati, Ohio for the summer months.

All this being said, the NYRangerscast Season Ending Episode will likely be recorded (and hopefully posted) this Wednesday. We’ve gotten a bunch of listener e-mail already, but we’d love some more. If you want to get your thoughts in on the season and the disappointing second round exit drop us a line a hosts@nyrangerscast.com or give us a call at 347-410-9093. Was this season a disappointment? What was the difference in the series with the Penguins? What do the Rangers need to do in the off-season? What should they do about Jagr? Avery? Shanahan? Rozsival?

Let us know you’re thoughts and, soon enough, we’ll let you know ours.

And don’t forget, even though the season is over, we’ll keep on trucking with off-season talk all throughout the summer months.

But for now, it’s off to bed where the nightmares of Malkin winding up from the point and Hossa ending the Rangers’ season with a “miss-shot” just refuse to cease.

I know what you’re all thinking: It’s Eric’s turn to do the live blog. But the playoffs are all about superstition and so after that Game 4 win, we’re not changing anything here at the NYRangerscast.  On top of me doing the live blog, I am wearing the exact same clothing that I did for game 4: a pair of Nike Sweatpants, a Shanahan Tee-Shirt, my Rangers hat and the same socks.  I will also be sitting in the same chair, watching the game on the same TV and ordering the same meal (a sheet pizza) at the 1st intermission.  My roommate will take a shower after the first (just as he did in the Game 4 victory) and my Messier, Richter, and Lundqvist jerseys will be layed out on our couch.

So there you go. Here at the NYRangerscast, we’re doing our part to make sure the Rangers play at least one more game at MSG this year.  We hope that you’re doing the same!

According to Rangers Report, Blue Notes, and The Blueshirt Blog, Lauri Korpikoski will indeed make his NHL debut today.  He’ll be centering a line of Freddy Sjostrom and…wait for it…Ryan “Ineptitude is my middle name” Hollweg.  Why Colton Orr would be held out of this game in favor of the man who essentially cost the Rangers Game 3 is beyond me. Hopefully this decision doesn’t come back to bite Renney and the Rangers.  They also write that Sean Avery has been released from the hospital.  A bit of inspiration for his teammates perhaps?

So here we go.  Game 7 #2 at the Igloo.  A win today and the series is as close as can be after 5!

2:08 p.m.: Pierre McGuire is not on this broadcast??! Well, certainly a good start to the day huh?

2:15 p.m.: Has NBC ever interviewed anybody besides Sidney Crosby?

2:22 p.m.: It’s certainly an adventure with Jason Strudwick on the ice…

2:27 p.m.: Some good play from both sides to start the game.  Would like to see the Rangers stand up at the blue line a little more.  Once the Pens get the puck in deep, it’s almost impossible to stop them. 

2:30 p.m.: So that’s how they’re gonna call this one. Big kill coming up…

2:34 p.m.: Nice kill. Way to stand up at the line and pressure once the power play set up…

2:35 p.m.: First shot by the Korpedo. The kid’s got speed…

2:41 p.m.: Nice play by Strudwick on Kennedy (there you go Michael)…

2:42 p.m.: Can this “hot” power play keep it going?

2:45 p.m.: Heads up play by Lundqvist to cover the puck right there. It’s remarkable how much trouble the Rangers are having getting the puck out of their own end this series…

2:48 p.m.: The ice looks terrible today! Pucks (and people) are bouncing all over the place…

2:49 p.m.: Malkin with a bad penalty. Rangers need to make them pay…

2:51 p.m.: Straka really seems to be having trouble with the ice. Nothing is crisp when he’s involved…

2:52 p.m.: How did Dawes miss that?? That would have been HUGE…

3:00 p.m.: Solid first period from both teams. Dawes really needed to bury that one, but what are you going to do? This one won’t be for the faint of heart…

3:13 p.m.: WHERE’S THE CALL?? Wow, that should be four minutes…

3:18 p.m.: Not a good start to the period. Big time kill needed…

3:19 p.m.: Another great kill…

3:20 p.m.: Strudwick draws a penalty! Nice play…

3:24 p.m.: CAN ROZSIVAL PUT ONE SHOT ON NET??? ONE!!! And then he takes a penalty.  Let’s just say I’m less than impressed with #3 right now…

3:28 p.m.: When you can’t get the puck out of your zone that’s what will happen.  Fantastic play by Hossa to keep the play alive, but the Rangers deserved to give up one there…

3:29 p.m.: Really Rozsival…REALLY?

3:31 p.m.: Unreal save by Lundy! The Pens are really trying to end it this period…

3:34 p.m.: Lundqvist saving the Rangers’ bacon again! Strudwick with the AWFUL giveaway. Don’t even start Michael…

3:36 p.m.: Well, there you go. Unbelievable talent by Malkin. The Pens deserve to be winning this game by at least two right now.  Not looking good…

3:38 p.m.: Jagr draws a penalty.  HUGE POINT IN THE GAME. The Rangers really need to get one before this period ends…

3:41 p.m.: Another Rangers power play. GET PUCKS TO THE NET.

3:44 p.m.: No penalty?? What is going on with this officiating??

3:46 p.m.: THIS OFFICIATING IS A JOKE! WHERE WAS THE CROSS CHECK ON DUBI?

3:49 p.m. End of 2nd: The Penguins dominated that period and it showed. The Rangers now have one period to save their season. The Sharks came back trailing 2-0 going into the third in their Game 5, the Rangers must try to do the same.  This is it…

4:09 p.m. GOAL!!!: KORPEDO!! Gotta keep the momentum going…

4:12 p.m. GOAL!!!: Nigel!! Woah Baby!! Eric’s boy coming through!!!

4:14 p.m.: Lundqvist with the save!!

4:15 p.m.: Hal Gill just hooked and took down Gomez! Call a penalty please!!

4:36 p.m.: Four-minute penalty on Drury! Unbelievable…

4:38 p.m. End of 3rd: And we’re going to Overtime! My heart skipped about 10 beats. The Pens have about 2:50 left on the power play. A big time kill and then let’s get it going.  So much tension, it hurts…

4:57 p.m.: Huge kill! Come on!!

5:03 p.m. SEASON OVER: That’s it. The Pens were flying in overtime, the Rangers seemed content to dump and change.  Not really in a state to say all that much right now.  Eric and I will have a series and season ending wrap up sometime this week. 

All I can say…I hope this isn’t the end for #68.