What a few Rangers did over Olympic Break....

For a little trade deadline talk break, here's an NHL Insider article on NHL.com talking about what a few NHL players did over the Olympic break. There is a large constituent of Rangers players featured for some odd reason. Below is the segment on Rangers players, click on link for the full article.

"Vinny Prospal of the New York Rangers took advantage of the break for a trip to Florida.

"It was really great for me and for my family," said Prospal, a former member of the Tampa Bay Lightning who still maintains a home in Tampa. "We went to Busch Gardens, got some sun, visited restaurants that we haven’t been to in a while. It was really great.

"I’ve tried to see almost all of the games," said Prospal, a native of the Czech Republic who represented his country in the 2006 Winter Games. "It’s hard watching from far away, but the Czechs better play better than they did (Tuesday) night."

Rangers teammate Enver Lisin said he did some scuba diving during the break and rookie defenseman Michael Del Zotto returned home to Stouffville, Ontario, for a brief stay before collecting his parents and treating them to a vacation together in beautiful Turks and Caicos. 

"I took my parents away, and it was real quiet and relaxing," said Del Zotto, who was not permitted to go in the water due to the 50 stitches that are still zippered across his torso, which was cut by Evgeni Malkin’s skate blade. "I just laid out all day."

Not all of the players sought out tropical destinations for the extended mid-season break, however. Erik Christensen, for example, went home to visit family and friends in Edmonton, Alberta, where he pointed out wryly that the temperature was "just a bit colder than it was (in New York)."

Full article: NHL Insider

Rangers win again...make it 7 straight

Graig Abel/NHLI via Getty Images)

Another great performance by Henrik and the Blueshirts tonight in Toronto.  They pick up their 7th straight win and are now 7-1 on the season. Their win also continued Toronto's dismal winless streak, who actually didn't look too bad at times in this game.
In  much of the first period and part of the second, Henrik kept the Rangers in it stopping the flurry of shots coming from the Maple Leafs.  Through the first 15 minutes, the Leafs outshot the Rangers 11-4. The turning point of the game, in my opinion, came when the Leafs had a 5 on 3 after Del Zotto and Boyle picked up penalties. Killing the 5 on 3, Ryan Callahan chased a puck in the neutral zone after clearing the zone and was slashed by Ponikarovsky. This ended the 5 on 3 and just thirty seconds later,  Brandon Dubinsky scored to make it 1-0.
From this point on, it seemed that the Rangers picked up their game. They showed more control in their offensive zone and were better defensively. Not to say that the Leafs didnt keep the shots coming, they did. But King Henrik stood tall, only allowing one goal on 35 total shots which came during the second period after making the initial two saves on the play. Cant fault him on that one, he made the stops he needed to make but the Leafs were able to pick up a rebound a put it in the back of the net.
In the third it was all Blueshirts after Enver Lisin scored his first goal as a New York Ranger and seemed to take the life out of the Maple Leafs. Both the crowd and the Leafs seemed out of it at that point and the Rangers controlled for the rest of the third.

A few thoughts from tonight:

**Nice to see Dubinsky continuing to rack up points. I know we saw his hot start dwindle last season, but something tells me that being on the line with Gabby and Prospal will keep his scoring up for quite a while.

**Congrats to Enver Lisin for picking up his first goal as a Ranger. Hoping for more to come.

**Redden seemed to have turned his game around drastically from last season, nice to see that money put to good use somewhat. Rozy is also improving slowly, key word there, slowly.

**Interesting stat: The oldest goal scorer tonight for the Rangers was just 23. Enver Lisin, beating out Duby in age by just 7 days.  Its nice to see that the future of this team is in good hands.