Come, find a nice spot on the couch, as we have a lot of sports to watch this weekend. We can start off with some college football in the afternoon. Then at 4pm on Fox, the Yankees face elimination (ahaha!) in Detroit. Then, of course, the Rangers are in Philadelphia at 7. At 7:30, the Mets play the Dodgers with a chance to advance to the LCS with a win. New Jersey is in Dallas at 8pm, and the Isles and their 15 year, 9.00 GAA goalie are in San Jose at 10:30. Sunday we have the Jets at Jacksonville and the Giants hosting the Redskins, as well as the chance of another game for both the Mets and Yankees. Yes sir! Fat city.
Regarding the Rangers, I thought it was an eye-opener when I was writing the front page last Saturday and a Daily News blurb mentioned Darius Kasparaitis' assistant captaincy had been given to Martin Straka. Now, as we know, Darius was held out of opening night on Thursday despite his claims he was ready to play, and it doesn't end there. He will also be held out of tonight's game in spite of Rachunek missing yesterday's practice with a charley horse. The Post and the Daily News have more.
Even though Renney plays it close to the vest and says Kasparaitis' issues are purely conditioning, make no mistake, Darius is in the doghouse. That the Post and News focus on Darius today amidst a wealth of other story possibilities just lends credence to the theory. It will be interesting to see how this plays out over the next few weeks.
Elsewhere in Rangerland, the Journal News has some more comments on opening night while Newsday talks just as much about Terrell Owens as it does the Rangers.
Calder has a roundup of the Wolf Pack's key departures and addittions for this season, their tenth in the AHL.
Getting back to Thursday for a minute, the only Ranger I felt played poorly was Fedor Tyutin. Consider that Kasparaitis is due to come out of the dog house at some point, and, apparantly, Sandis Ozolinsh is ready to play as well although it's not yet known if the Rangers are going to demote him to waivers/Hartford. With Rachunek and Pock playing well so far, who's the odd man out when Darius comes back? Who should be the odd man out? Yeah, I'm thinking Tyutin. Why should Pock go back to Hartford if he's outplaying Fedor? Anyway, something to keep an eye on, as the Rangers will have an awfully crowded blueline very shortly.
See ya on the couch.
- Rocha
eMail this entry!
|
Recent Articles
|
|
|