Its far too early to draw any conclusions, let alone panic, but The Rangers need to find a place for Alex Frolov and given Gaborik’s absence, sooner rather than later.

Frolov hasnt yet looked particularly comfortable and didnt seem to mesh with his new line mates in the loss against Colorado despite scoring his first goal as a Ranger. Derek Stepan and Ruslan Fedotenko’s line that featured an excellent Sean Avery shouldnt have been split up and there’s a good chance it will be reunited for the rematch with Toronto on Thursday. The line showed chemistry and offensive ability, something that any line Frolov has been on thus far has failed to do consistently. Alex Frolov needs to be successful for the Rangers to be successful. He instantly became one of the higher skilled players on the team upon signing in the off season and along with Gaborik needs to be a regular contributor.

So what to do with Frolov?  Its a difficult question to answer seeing as its hard to split up the better two lines thus far of Anisimov – Dubinsky – Callahan and Stepan’s line. Who can ignite Frolov? Frolov can make plays himself but would be best served with a distrbutor and given the lack of options due to injury one possibility would be pairing Frolov up with Todd White. White showed during his time in Atlanta that he can compliment and defer to a skilled winger (Kovalchuk) successfully and would be highly motivated to achieve some chemistry with Frolov given his daily fight to get in and stay in the line up. Even when Gaborik returns the no.1 center debate will still need answering so matching Frolov and White together now would, could start the process of forming a line that can have chemistry. Frolov and White both have a lot to play for, esentially both are playing for their NHL futures (to varying degrees) so they would surely be hungry to mesh.

The Rangers have a lot of issues and a lot of questions to answer and the Frolov situation bears watching. Right now, not many players (potentially) mean more to the success/failure of the Rangers early in the season.

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