NEW YORK – The Rangers made the biggest offseason splash when they signed Brad Richards to a nine-year, $90 million contract that put the former Dallas Stars center on the hot seat in the media capital of the world.
Richards provided immediate dividends in his debut Friday night, scoring once on a fortuitous bounce and setting up Gaborik’s power-play goal Friday night in a sweep of the teams’ two games at the Prudential Center in Newark, N.Y. In the afternoon, Ryan Bourque, son of Hockey Hall of Famer Ray Bourque, scored twice as the Rangers prospects team beat their Devils counterparts, 5-4.
While Bourque will be counted on by the Rangers in the near future, Richards is expected to be the key for the attack that had to work overtime to score most of last season.
Richards’ first Rangers goal came only 4:22 into his first game on his second shift as he got around David Steckel and rifled a pass from the low left circle intended for Wojtek Wolski on the other side of the crease that deflected off the skate of Devils defenseman Adam Larsson, the fourth overall pick in June, and past Martin Brodeur to tie the score.
“He (Richards) made some good plays with the puck,” said Tortorella, who again watched from the stands. “His passing ability, that’s a big part of his game. So I thought that line created a lot of offense. Hopefully, we’ll see, we’ll try some people along the way here and just see how it goes. I thought Richards played well.”
Richards skated between Gaborik and Wolski, as they have most of training camp. Richards, Gaborik and new defenseman Brendan Bell each had a goal and an assist for the Rangers, who escaped a potential overtime when Ilya Kovalchuk was denied a fourth point less than two minutes after Bell’s blast from the blue line had given the Rangers the lead. Kovalchuk had a goal and two assists, and his potential equalizer was denied with 2:22 left for Nick Palmieri’s interference on goalie Chad Johnson, who stopped the 10 shots he faced and got the win.
“We played a good first half of the game,” Richards said. “Then we let them back in it, they got momentum and made it a lot tougher. … But we ended up getting a goal when we needed it, and finished it out.”
The Rangers had a two-goal lead thanks to goals by Richards, Derek Stepan and Gaborik after Adam Henrique had scored on a backhand 92 seconds into the game. A series of penalties – Kris Newbury for slashing at 6:40, Newbury for tripping at 14:46, Tim Erixon for hooking at 16:10 and Valentenko for holding at 18:55 – helped the Devils tie the game. Jacob Josefsen scored on a 4-on-4 and Kovalchuk scored with one second left in a 5-on-3.
Martin Biron allowed the three Devils goals on 16 shots, giving way after two periods to Johnson, who was 10-for-10 in the third. It was Biron’s first competition since breaking his collarbone when hit by a shot in practice on Feb. 28.
“The timing is what needs to be back,” Biron said. “It felt good the last couple of days. We had real practices – we had 45 minutes to an hour, with 2-on-1s, 3-on-2s, plays down low, that kind of thing – where the first few days of camp, there’s a lot of scrimmages, and then if you have a practice with 14 guys on the ice, it’s a lot of flow and then some conditioning.”
Mike Rupp, who had five hits in his Rangers debut against his former team, got into a fight with Eric Boulton with 2:39 left in the third period and landed several solid shots after Boulton’s helmet came off. Boulton rallied a bit, but it was a win for Rupp – and shortly thereafter for the Rangers.
“Rupp had a good game, not a bad game forechecking,” Tortorella said. “We tried him a little bit killing penalties, see what he can do there. (The fight is) part of his responsibility. I’m not sure how it all started. I thought he stood in there really well, and Boulton’s a pretty good fighter.”
In his first game as Rangers captain, former Hartford Wolf Pack right wing Ryan Callahan had the primary assist on Gaborik’s goal, tied with Gaborik and Wolski for the team high in shots with four and led all Rangers forwards in ice team with 21:57. He was also part of a five-forward power play that also included Gaborik and Rupp up front and Richards and Wolski on the points.
Tortorella said All-Star defenseman Marc Staal might not go to Europe on Monday because of lingering post-concussion headaches from a hit by his brother, All-Star center Eric Staal, in a game against the Carolina Hurricanes on Feb. 22. He didn’t skate Thursday and Friday because he was seeing specialists but could join the Rangers during the week if he’s not on the plane Monday night.
“There’s all different options. It depends,” Tortorella said. “We’re trying to get him straightened out for the regular season. We feel the specialists that he’s seeing now are going to speed that up. So if he doesn’t make the first plane, he could come over the next day. We just haven’t gotten that far. He’s done a lot of testing, a lot of things over the past two days, and is doing it now. So we’ll find out more as we go into (Saturday) and Sunday.”
Story by Bruce Berlet of the Connecticut Whale
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