Pre-Gaming: Minnesota Wild

On Friday, the Blueshirts play the Wild in Minnesota, former home of the NHL sellout record. I think their sellout streak lapsed early this season, but I know that their offense did.

The Wild have a hard time scoring goals.  Martin Havlat (1-4-5), who the Wild signed to replace the offensive vacuum created by Gaborik's departure to the Rangers, has appeared in ten games, but put up just one goal and four assists. Their leading scorer, Andrew Brunette (7-3-10), also leads the team points. Looking at his numbers, that doesn't say much about the team. The Wild also brought in vet right winger Petr Sykora (1-0-1), who has been a healthy scratch several times thus far, and most recently received the underperforming Chuck Kobasew from Boston via trade. The excellently named sophomore Cal Clutterbuck, who led the league in hits last year, has yet to contribute much on offense. Minnesota is at the bottom of a relatively soft Central Division, and can't seem to find the back of the net consistently.

This is an entirely winnable game for the Rangers. The Wild gave up six goals to the Kings, five to Edmonton, and let Nashville score four, losing all three games. I would guess that they're not going to score 5 goals on Hank this time around, and not only because the Rangers signed the guy who did it for them last time.

However, much like the Wild, the Rangers also struggle to score without Marion Gaborik, who in all likelihood will miss Friday's game. Without Gaborik to carry them on the scoresheet, the Rangers don't pose much of a threat offensively. At even strength and on the powerplay they suffer badly without him. So what can Torts and the Rangers do?

• Give Artem Anisimov his shot. Fourth line players don't throw spin moves 5 feet off the post and backhand the puck high glove side, like Anisimov did against the Islanders. He's getting eight minutes a night when he could be getting Enver Lisin minutes and producing (that's not to say Lisin doesn't deserve his ice time). Remember his highlight reel goal in the preseason game against Boston? The guy is a goal scorer, and the Rangers need goals.  Put him on a line with Callahan and Avery.  Callahan's hits and Avery's antics will create space for the rookie center to make some plays.
  
• Bench Chris Higgins.  Put your money where your mouth is, Torts: it's time to bench guys, even if it's just for one game.  Higgins is a very hard worker but he doesn't have the scoring touch at the moment, and his sluggishness makes me think he's nursing an injury.  Evgeni Grachev was shaky in preseason but in terms of production, the Rangers wouldn't be losing anything by giving him Higgins' spot for a game or two.   Thus far, the youth movement has mostly paid dividends - why not keep it going?
  
• Split up Staal and Girardi.  I'm not sure what's been bringing their game down lately, but these two guys do not have chemistry on the blue line.

...And then the Rangers will be saved!  Well, maybe not, but they need to win in Minnesota to show that they can pull out a W even with Gabby watching from the press box.  May they can ask the Wild for some tips on that one, because those guys did it for years.