Sean Avery To Save New York Rangers

Sean Avery, the NHL's prodigal son and bad boy, making a comeback via the AHL, will be watched closely and may be expected to be the savior of a New York Rangers team that was flat before he arrived.

In the past, the Rangers have hired some high priced help, including Glenn Anderson, Marcel Dionne, Phil Esposito, Jari Kurri, Guy Lafleur, Mark Messier, Adam Graves, and Wayne Gretzky.
In an earlier era, they brought in Johnny Bower, Dick Duff, Tim Horton, and Terry Sawchuck.
In the 1990s, they had the highest payroll in the history of hockey and missed the playoffs six years in a row. They were the New York Yankees of hockey, but without the championships.
The Yankees lead Major League Baseball with 26 World Series championships and 39 American League Pennants. They have more championships than any other North American franchise in professional sports history, passing the 24 Stanley Cup championships by the Montreal Canadiens.
With the salary cap in the "new" NHL, you can't fill up your team with superstars and try to win everything.

Anyway, there are intangible factors, including egos, desire, chemistry, will, sirit, heart, grit, and also the reaction of the fans in the stands, not to mention the media.
Most NHL teams have a superstar or two. The Pittsburgh Penguins have Sidney Crosby and Evegni Malkin. Washington has Alexander Ovechkin. The Vancouver Canucks recently added Mats Sundin. Marian Hossa is in Detroit now, and Joe Thornton is in San Jose.  
Top Rangers Scott Gomez, Chris Drury, Markus Naslund, and Nikolai Zherdev are not scoring. The Rangers are now in last place in team scoring.

Naslund has 16 goals this year.  Drury and Zherdev have 15, and Gomez has 10. Avery scored 15 goals for the Rangers last year, during the regular season, and added 4 more in the play-offs.

Avery is not known as a great goal scorer.  He is known as the best pest in the NHL.  For his career, the 28-year-old has 68 goals, 177 points and 1,144 penalty minutes in 402 regular-season appearances.

Avery was the sparkplug who got the Rangers firing on all cylinders last year, when they beat the Devils in the playoffs.  But they still got killed by the Penguins in the next round. Avery almost died trying, as he suffered a lacerated spleen.

The Rangers tried to get Sundin, this, but he chose Vancouver over New York.

The Rangers with Avery added would still need to add a shooting star.

Jagr was rumoured to be joining the Edmonton Oilers, last week. Jagr now plays with Omsk of the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia and would have to clear NHL waivers before signing with any team. He has 25 goals and 51 points in 48 KHL games this season and turns 37 next week.

If they cannot hire a sniper, the Rangers have to hope Avery can score some goals, and help Gomez score over 30, as he did with the Devils, Naslund score over 40, as he did with the Canucks, Drury score more than 30, as he did with the Buffalo Sabres, and Zherdev get into the high twenties, as he did with the Columbus Blue Jackets.

The Rangers were under .500 when they acquired Avery in February 2007 but went 17-4-6 the rest of the way with him. His play was not the only reason for the turnaround, but he seemed to breath new life into the team.  A breath the Rangers need desperately right now.