Michal Rozsival News

From left, Marc Staal, Nigel Dawes and Chris Drury celebrate Drury's goal against Kevin Weekes of the New Jersey Devils at the Prudential Center in New Jersey.

John Tortorella was supposed to change everything for the Rangers. Where previous coach Tom Renney coached with a conservative, defensive posture, Tortorella is all about risk and offense.

Nathan Horton, Jordan Leopold and Steven Reinprecht scored goals and Tomas Vokoun made 32 saves as the streaking Florida Panthers beat the slumping New York Rangers 3-2 on Saturday night.

Let's face it. The Rangers are in trouble. Not only are they plagued by roster deficiencies that have been exacerbated by a couple of injuries with which the organization seems unequipped to cope, but nearly every team in the East that finished behind them last season seems improved, perhaps dramatically so.

NEW YORK While Atlanta's Ilya Kovalchuk made a big splash in his return from injury Thursday night, Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist had far less success after missing two games with an undisclosed lower-body injury.

Eighteen games into the Rangers' season and this is what we've seen so far: the effort comes and goes, the scoring comes and goes, the forecheck comes and goes, the backchecking comes and goes and the defense comes and goes.

Ryan Kesler, with his three assists, is currently the highest scoring American-born player in the NHL with 16 points... Since being hooked in Anaheim last Friday, Canuck goalie Andrew Raycroft has stopped 40 of 41 shots.

Michal Rozsival and the New York Rangers skate away with a 4-2 victory over the Edmonton Oilers.

Fundamentally, mistakes are undermining the Rangers every bit as much as their sudden inability to pose more of an offensive threat than last season's team.

My junior high was located 14 blocks from Madison Square Garden and heaven help you if you were an Islandersa TM fan.

In going 7-1 out of the gate, the Rangers outscored their opponents 32-15 while surrendering two goals or fewer in six of the eight games.

Matt Stajan #14 and Viktor Stalberg #45 of the Toronto Maple Leafs try to stop Michael Del Zotto #4 of the New York Rangers.

A story by Graeme Hamilton in today's National Post discusses a new book published in Quebec alleging that the N.H.L. has an anti-francophone bias, at least when it comes to drafting players.

A guy wearing a Rangers hat met a guy wearing a Canadiens hat yesterday on the East Side and the Canadiens hat guy said, "Good start by your team this season." Rangers hat smiled and replied, "Thanks for taking Gomez off our hands." The June trade that sent Scott Gomez to Montreal laid the foundation for this year's rejuvenated Rangers, currently ...

They have won four straight since an opening-night defeat, but the Rangers won't make the same mistake they did last year when they got way too full of themselves after bolting to a 10-2-1 start.

There is a reason the Rangers pay Marian Gaborik the big bucks, and that is to take hold of games like Thursday night's in which the Rangers didn't know if they were coming or going.

NEW YORK - OK, before we start checking for availability in the Canyon of Heroes in June, let's remember this: The Rangers were 10-2-1 out of the gate last season.

Ales Kotalik's power-play goal snapped a third-period tie, and backup Steve Valiquette made 18 saves in the New York Rangers' fourth straight victory, 3-0 over the Anaheim Ducks on Sunday.

What we have got here is failure to communicate. A day after benching Michal Rozsival for the final 31 minutes of the Rangers' 4-3 victory in Washington, John Tortorella said that he had not talked to the defenseman because, basically, he's done enough talking.

On a night of snap-crackling energy at the Garden opener, during which the Rangers flashed their speed and their skill, it was their mindset as articulated by the brilliant Henrik Lundqvist that was most encouraging.