New York Rangers Morning Musings: Gaborik's Injury; Predators Preview; NHL Moves

On a snow-filled morning here in New York, the Rangers will be preparing to hit the ice against the Nashville Predators tonight at Madison Square Garden after having a very rare three consecutive days off following Saturday's 3-1 victory over the New Jersey Devils.

Since then, the team has held two practices and also participated in their annual Casino Night at Gotham Hall on Monday.

Obviously, the big question heading into tonight's contest will be if star-winger Marian Gaborik will be able to play after getting stitched up for a laceration at the conclusion of yesterday's skate.

Henrik Lundqvist, as well as the writers on the scene, first thought Gaborik was playing around when he limped off the ice, but now we know that it was no joke. Fortunately, the injury did not turn out as bad as it was originally thought, but based on Marian's history, the coaching staff must be extra cautious with their leading scorer.

We will probably know if Gaborik will play or not during today's morning skate at the training center. I would expect him to skate with the team in the morning, and will most likely report to head coach John Tortorella as well as team doctors/trainers afterwards on his status and how the stitched area feels. That is normally standard procedure when handling situations like this.

Keep tabs on Ranger Rants, as Andrew Gross does a spectacular job of detailing everything that goes on in the Rangers' skates, and he will definitely have Gaborik updates up on his site as they come in.

The Predators coughed up a lead out on the Island last night, and ended up falling to the Islanders in the shootout, 4-3. The Preds are clearly a team that powers themselves on work ethic and quickness. They displayed both early on in that game, when they dominated, but eventually started to take ignorant penalties which led to an Isles comeback.

Also last night, the Atlanta Thrashers traded goaltender Kari Lehtonen to the Dallas Stars in exchange for defenseman Ivan Vishnevskiy and a fourth-round pick in this year's draft.

With this acquisition, the Stars have a surplus of players in the goaltending position, which means veteran netminder Marty Turco may find himself being moved before the deadline.

On the flip side, Don Waddell and the Atlanta Thrashers have been very active in the past week, shipping off Ilya Kovalchuk and now Lehtonen. Look for them to have a big offseason this summer, because right now they are missing a main attraction without Kovalchuk in the lineup. Should be interesting to see how Atlanta goes about doing things from this point on.

I will be keeping an eye out for any Marian Gaborik updates today, so be sure to check back on the blog for those, as well as the usual pregame preview later this afternoon.