September Musings

The King

Due to my overwhelming excitement at the beginning of football season, today’s post will be a pre-season discombobulated musings. The World Cup preliminaries this past weekend show that the sport is quickly upon us. It brings up some pretty good questions about our Blueshirts.

• The World Cup is really fun, but can it be damaging? I caught some highlights from Friday night’s game and honestly wish I hadn’t. If a Ranger gets hurt, even a little banged up, I’m not sure I’m on the WCH-is-a-valid-reason-like-the-Olympics train.

• On that train, I think the timing for the exhibition is not the greatest. We’re all starved for hockey, but it comes when the baseball playoff race is hot and football is starting. Even if you don’t care about any other sport, the coverage an exhibition that aims to be as important as large tournaments in any sport will not be present.

• I’m mostly just excited to be at MSG for a Rangers game soon, even though I love watching some American players who I’m not allowed to cheer for during the season.

• This upcoming season has some real potential to be good. Having several forwards compete for a spot hopefully means that the lines will be the best talent and keep an aggressive edge.

• But what about those defensemen? We all thought that the play with having so many forwards was to use some as a bargaining chip, but the biggest play was swapping a forward for another forward. What gives?

• I’ll repeat what many have said before me: if Marc Staal is serviceable this season, it’s pretty likely the Rangers will be able to use him as a chip. Let’s not forget that before the playoffs, Staal became more of the player we had been used to before his injuries.

• In around the league news, has anyone else ever had an extreme emotional reaction to a non-Rangers player signing with a different team? That was me with David Backes. I’m not prepared to have to hate him on October 26.

Let’s kick this out to some questions:

1- Will you be watching the World Cup?

2- Are you hopeful despite the defensive woes?

3- Are there any other teams you’re excited to watch this season?