New York Rangers Weekly Report: Preseason Approaches, Watch Out For Derek Stepan

Rangers Weekly Report: No. 1

Welcome to the first edition of Ranger Weekly Report! Each week a new one will be posted, usually Sundays, giving a review of the past week, and a preview of the week in progress. 

Here is the information you need to know regarding the article set-up:

Rangers Weekly Preview: Pretty self-explanatory, weekly previews will be a preview of the week ahead. I will preview games, what to watch for, and much more. It will cover all you need to know regarding the Rangers for that specific week. (will usually show up as the second section of the weekly report)

Rangers Weekly Review: For the weekly review, I will be reviewing everything that happened in the past week. This includes games, trades, injury's, and any other occurrences from the previous week. (this will usually be section one of the weekly report articles, but since there is nothing to review this week there will not be a "review" section)

Without further a due:

Rangers Weekly Preview

This week, as many of you already know, began the Rangers 2010-11 training camp. Today will be the third day of the grueling camp sessions, in which the Rangers will break out the pucks and begin scrimmaging.

What to watch for:

1. Rangers top prospect, Derek Stepan, will get a chance to play on the No. 1 line during today's scrimmage, and he will be centering Marian Gaborik and Alexander Frolov. This move could work wonders for Stepan's developmont, and hopefully he will get a chance to do this during preseason as well. Just imagine if this works out, Stepan gets a spot on the team, and the Rangers find a potential number one center for years to come.

UPDATE: In the morning scrimmage, Rangers red beat Rangers green by a score of 6-4. The line of Gaborik, Stepan, and Frolov completely dominated. A couple assists for Gaborik, a goal for Stepan, and a hat trick for Frolov.

2. Other top Rangers prospects will be trying to make names for themselves during today's scrimmage. Those players include Ethan Werek, Evgeny Grachev, Mats Zuccarello (Aasen), Ryan Bourque, Ryan McDonagh, Thomas Kundratek, and Dylan Mcilrath. Please ignore the way all of these players performed during skating sessions, especially Zuke, who struggled mightily, they won't make (or not make) the team for the way they skated, they will make the team for the way they perform in a game.

3. As the Rangers get deeper into camp, those questions that I brought up in my previous article will become louder and louder in Glen Sather's mind. So, I will preview the questions once again.

Trade talks—It is still very possible that a trade is made before the end of training camp. The big name out there for the Rangers right now, happens to be defenseman Michal Rozsival. I've said it in the past and I will say it again, he has trade value! What would he bring back in a trade? I do not know.

Other possible trade bait could be Sean Avery and Matt Gilroy, but they seem less likely at this point.

Waive Wade Redden—The waiver wire re-opens on September 25th, which may be the day Glen Sather sends Redden down to the minor leagues. Will it happen, right now I am going to say yes. He has not had a very good training camp, and he does not have the attitude he should have if he would like to make the team. He will be welcomed in Hartford when he gets there.

A fourth to watch out for, are the New York Rangers camp invitees. I asked Jim Cerny, the New York Rangers beat writer, for a brief update on the Rangers camp invites (Ruslan Fedotenko, Alexei Semenov, and Garnet Exelby), and he replied by saying:

"It's only been conditioning tests so far, but Semenov and Fedotenko looked excellent, and Exelby looked pretty good."

They sound like they are working hard to earn a spot, but they will have to play well in scrimmages and preseason to solidify a spot. Also, it may be worth noting that Fedotenko dropped 15 pounds over the summer.

Preseason Is Back!

That's right Rangers fans! Preseason hockey is back with two games this week against the rival New Jersey Devils. 

The first game is on September 23rd at 7:00 p.m.. That game will be in New York.

The second game will be in New Jersey on Saturday the 25th at 7:00 p.m.

While these games will not count for much in the standings or statistic column, they will be important in getting to know the players, and seeing how the prospects fare in an actual game. They should be exciting, so remember to watch both games on MSG.

That's it for this weeks Rangers report, thanks for the read.

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or shoot me a tweet at @nickpnyrwriter.