The Fro: Frolov wants to play on a line with Gaborik and Anisimov

The newly acquired winger, Alexander Frolov, sat down for an interview in Russia to talk about his choice to stay in the NHL. In it he explained one of the reasons he decided to play with the Rangers, Is because of Marian Gaborik. When answering a question about playing with Gaby, he explained how he wants to create “a high powered offensive unit” with Gaborik. That may or may not work out, but another thing he said is that he would like to see his friend, Artem Anisimov, center the line of him and Gaborik. Let’s look at this for a second, and try to picture this “High powered offensive unit” between Gaborik and Frolov, with sophomore center Artem Anisimov on their line. Artie is a good player, and will probably only get better over time, but is he ready to center the top-line? In 82 games last season, Artie strung together a total of 12 goals, and 28 points (16 assists). He definitely has offensive talent inside him, and hopefully he could be added to the Rangers list of “20 goals scorers” in the near future. But is he ready to take on the first line? Well that’s what pre-seasons for! Maybe Tortorella tries that out, and if it works out well then maybe it sticks. Gaby and Frolov would be great playing together, that’s obvious, but how would Anisimovs numbers improve? I would think a whole lot. Artie played 3^rd/ 4^th line last season, playing with Boyle, Brashear, Lisin, Avery, and ended playing with Shelley and Prust (on a real dynamic line) and he still scored 12 goals. If he can score 12 goals playing on the bottom two lines, I would expect him to be able to reach 20 goals playing on one of the top two lines. As much as I would love to see him on a line with Gaborik and Frolov, him being Anisimov, I don’t think he is ready to take on the responsibilities of 1^st line play. Maybe he could play on the 2^nd line with Frolov, while Gaborik gets to play with Christenson and Prospal, which would be a good idea. That would spread the “wealth” (goals) between lines 1 and 2, and maybe we wouldn’t have to worry about secondary scoring like we did last year. Again, I would love to see Artie out there with the big boys, but not just yet.

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