The Puck Stops Here
Surprise! The Rangers Are Scoring
by PuckStopsHere on 10/14/09 at 10:32 AM ET
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Early season trends often do not last for the whole season, but one of the more surprising ones so far is that the New York Rangers are scoring. They have more goals than any other team in the NHL with 24. They have averaged four goals per game, which ties them for the league lead with the Atlanta Thrashers (who have fewer games played). This is a surprise because last season the Rangers scored the fifth fewest goals with 210. They had the least potent offence among teams that made the playoffs in 2009.
It looked like things would be worse this season as most of their top offensive players from last year are not returning. Nikolai Zherdev, Scott Gomez, Markus Naslund and Nik Antropov were among the highest scoring Rangers last year (among returning players only Chris Drury outscored some of those players) and all have moved on to other teams. The question of who was going to score goals for the Rangers was a big one. It was one I wrote about this summer.
The question is who is scoring? For a large part the answer is guys who were not on the Rangers last year. Leading the team in scoring with nine points is Marian Gaborik, who was added as a free agent from Minnesota. Gaborik should be a good scorer, but it is unclear that he will remain healthy all season. Next up is Vinny Prospal. He is another free agent. The Tampa Bay Lightning bought him out this summer (he would be their second highest scorer if his seven points were in Tampa). Third is Brandon Dubinsky, who remains with the team despite a lengthy contract dispute this summer. Dubinsky has been the top remaining scorer for the Rangers. Next up are free agent signee Ales Kotalik and rookie Michael Del Zotto, who have five points each. Another rookie, Artem Anisimov is among the Rangers with four points.
It is highly unlikely that the Rangers will remain the top scoring team in the NHL as we get further into the season, but it seems reasonable to think that their offence is better than we expected. They probably will not be a bottom feeding team offensively. Their newcomers will likely not continue scoring at this rate - as several players project to having their best career seasons offensively at this early point - but they can score and will likely keep the New York Rangers from being among the lowest scoring teams in the NHL.
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Tags: Marian+Gaborik, New+York+Rangers, Vaclav+Prospal,
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