After a 113 day owner imposed lockout, the New York Rangers are itching to get back on the ice to prove last year’s surprise performance that netted them their first 50 win season and first division title in 18 years was not a fluke.  Analysts predicted the 2011-12 Rangers to finish somewhere between the middle of the pack in the Eastern Conference to outside of the top eight after a disappointing exit out of the 2011 playoffs at the hands of Alex Ovechkin and their hated rivals the Washington Capitals.  But from day one of last season, Coach John Tortorella preached hard work and dedication to his defensive system and the results far exceeded anyone’s expectations.  The Rangers shocked us all by not only winning the Atlantic Division but coming within one point of winning the President’s Trophy. And in the playoffs the club won two playoff rounds in the same postseason for the first time in 15 years.

Simply put, the 2012-13 Rangers will not be able to sneak up on anybody.  They made headlines last April and May by winning two gritty seven game series against the Ottawa Senators and the Washington Capitals before succumbing to their cross river rivals, the New Jersey Devils, in another hard fought six games.  The Rangers seemed to run out of gas by the end of the Devils series but it was not in the Rangers nature to use fatigue as an excuse.  Coach Tortorella refused to believe that the loss to the Devils was due to his players being beaten and sometimes broken over the 20 games that they played in the playoffs.  But it was hard to believe that the Rangers were not affected by the fact that they had gone the max in the first two rounds in two very tough series.  A playoff record of 10-10 left the entire organization wanting for more in 2013.

The Rangers continued to make headlines in the offseason as Henrik Lundqvist won the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the league’s best goaltender.  He was the first Ranger to win the award since John Vanbiesbrouck won it in 1985-86.  Lundqvist’s career best 39 wins were second most in Rangers history to Mike Richter’s 42.  King Henrik was also nominated for the Hart Trophy and the Lester B. Pearson Award, two trophies that honor the league’s Most Valuable Player.  However, to no one’s surprise those trophies went to Evgeny Malkin, who led the Penguins to the playoffs in Sidney Crosby’s absence last season. 

In July, the Rangers said goodbye to key role players Ruslan Fedotenko, Brandon Prust and John Mitchell and welcomed Taylor Pyatt, Arron Asham and Jeff Halpern via free agency to New York.  Then on July 24^th, the Rangers pulled the trigger on their biggest trade since Glen Sather acquired Jaromir Jagr in February, 2004.  After a six month flirtation with Columbus, the Rangers finally added former 40 goal scorer and All Star Rick Nash to the club in return for homegrown Ranger centers Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov, top defense prospect Tim Erixon and a first round pick in 2013.  The Rangers also received a conditional third round pick and minor league defenseman Steve Delisle in the deal. 

The Rangers feel with the addition of Nash and the full recovery from shoulder labrum surgery by Marion Gaborik they possess two of the top five goal scorers in the league.  There is hope that the goal scoring drought that plagued the Rangers throughout the postseason should now be solved.  There is also hope that Chris Kreider will also contribute greatly to the Rangers offense as he will be with the Rangers in the regular season for the first time.

Coaching – Tortorella returns behind the Rangers bench to start his fourth full season at Madison Square Garden.  He was originally hired to replace Tom Renney in February, 2008 and has won 145 of the 267 games he has coached for the Blueshirts.  Those 145 wins are good for fifth all-time in Rangers history.  Tortorella has won a Stanley Cup with the Tampa Bay Lightning in the 2003-04 and has also coached an AHL team, the Rochester Americans, to the Calder Cup back in 1995-96.  The coach is known as an abrasive coach but his style suits the Rangers at this time.  They are a tough, blue collar group that blocks a lot of shots and forechecks opponents relentlessly.  In fact, the forecheck and counterattack were the keys to the Rangers success in 2011-12.  And opponents should expect more of the same from a more talented Rangers squad in 2013.  Tortorella will again be assisted by bench coach Mike Sullivan and goaltending coach Benoit Allaire.

Forwards – The addition of Rick Nash will change the dynamic of the Eastern Conference’s best team for the upcoming season.  Nash should immediately make the Rangers a more dangerous team on the power play as well as at even strength.  Teams will no longer be able to throw a checking line out against a Gaborik line or a Callahan line when the Rangers could roll three lines with three different right wingers capable of scoring 30-plus goals.  Chances are either Gaborik or Nash will move over to the left side but the Rangers now have more scoring depth than they have had in a very long time.  Most seem to think that Nash will immediately be paired with Brad Richards to start the season.  But with Gaborik having fully healed from shoulder surgery the Rangers have options on the wings for the top two lines.  The top six forwards should be Nash, Richards, Gaborik, Kreider, center Derek Stepan and winger Ryan Callahan.  Throw in winger Carl Hagelin and the Rangers have seven forwards capable of playing on the top two lines at any time.  Any combination of those seven will be difficult to defend. 

On the checking line, the Rangers hope that Hagelin continues to develop as a defensive forward and penalty killer as well as a scorer.  There is also hope that center Brian Boyle will rediscover the scoring touch that netted him 20 goals in 2010-11.  Last year’s offensive slump did not affect Boyle’s ability to make plays and check opponents’ best lines.  Boyle did a great job all year long as the Rangers primary checking center.  Boyle and Hagelin will most likely be joined by Taylor Pyatt, who arrives from Phoenix with a lot of size and ability. 

On primarily what will be a fourth line, the Rangers expect more out of Mike Rupp, who was hampered by a knee injury that lingered throughout the season last year.  They also added Halpern, a well respected faceoff specialist, as well as Asham for grit and toughness.  Asham is the type of player that most fans of opposing teams hate but love when he is a member of their team.  The Rangers are hoping he becomes a fan favorite as quickly as former Ranger Brandon Prust did when he first arrived on the scene. 

Providing depth for the forwards are new additions Michael Haley and Brandon Segal, who have seen a lot of ice time down with the AHL’s Connecticut Whale, as well as rookies J.T. Miller, Christian Thomas and Marek Hrivik, who have yet to take the ice at the NHL level. 

Defensemen – This unit became one of the NHL’s best in 2011-12 when Ryan McDonagh and All-Star selection Dan Girardi really stepped up to become one of the league’s best pairings.  While former first round pick Marc Staal was recovering from post-concussion syndrome McDonagh and Girardi stepped up their game and became the Rangers their best pairing since Brian Leetch and Jeff Beukeboom patrolled the Garden ice in the mid-1990s.  Staal returned in January to play in last year’s Winter Classic and regained his form within a couple of weeks.  He was joined by Anton Stralman and formed a solid second pairing from early spring through the playoffs. 

Another first round pick, Michael Del Zotto, rebounded from an underachieving sophomore season to find a new dimension to his game and really was one of the better players on the Rangers for long stretches of last season.  Del Zotto’s skating and puck moving abilities were key assets for the Rangers as he limited turnovers in the defensive zone.  His game has transitioned from more of an offensive minded defenseman to a very solid two-way blueliner.  Armed with a new two year contract, the hope is that Del Zotto continues to grow both offensively and defensively. 

Also returning to the Rangers are free agent defensemen Stu Bickel, Mike Eminger and Matt Gilroy. Both Bickel and Eminger played in over 40 games for the Rangers last year and performed well enough to crack the lineup as sixth defensemen.  However, you have to question how much Coach Tortorella trusts either player as Bickel averaged only 5:10 per game in the postseason and Eminger only 6:49 of ice time.  Gilroy rejoins the Rangers after a 2011-12 season split between Tampa Bay and Ottawa.  He has been playing in Hartford and had six goals and nine assists but was a terrible -16 in 34 games for the Whale since October. The defense seemed to wear down as the playoffs went on because of the large amounts of ice time that the top four were getting each night.  This may be an area that the Rangers want to look at to get better. 

Unfortunately it has recently been announced that defenseman Mike Sauer will miss the entire 2012-13 season because he is still suffering from symptoms of post concussion syndrome.  Sauer was injured in December, 2011 and missed the remainder of the 2011-12 season with those same symptoms.  The Rangers will hold out hope that he will make a full recovery and be part of the club for the 2013-14 season. 

Providing depth in Hartford are veterans Sean Collins and Mike Vernace as well as rookie defenseman Dylan McIlrath, who was a first round pick in 2010.  A lot of is expected of McIlrath as he enters his first season as a pro.  His presence has been immediately felt on the AHL level and he could join the big club by late April if his defensive game is as sound as the Rangers would like it to be by then.

Goaltenders – You can make the argument that the Rangers have not had a better goaltender tandem than they have now since the stretch of 1994-97 when Mike Richter and Glenn Healy patrolled the crease at MSG for the Rangers.  Henrik Lundqvist was the team Most Valuable Player last season for the sixth consecutive season.  It is the first time in Rangers history that the award, that is voted on by the Professional Hockey Writers Association, has been given to a player for six seasons in a row.  Very few outside of Los Angeles would argue that King Henrik was the best goaltender in the regular season last year.  His numbers were staggering.  39 wins, 8 shutouts, a 1.97 goals against average and a .930 save percentage were all among league leaders in 2011-12.  Only LA’s Jonathan Quick could be talked about in the same breath as Lundqvist in 2011-12.  And Quick was the one holding the Cup at end of the season last year.

Backing Hank up is the very capable Martin Biron, who re-signed with the Rangers in the offseason for two more years.  His 20 wins over the last two years are the most by a Rangers backup since Healy posted 22 in 1995-97.  Biron will again be relied up to play about 20-25% of the games this season to keep Henrik fresh for what the Rangers hope is a very deep run into the playoffs in 2013.

Intangibles – The Rangers special teams were both a help and a hindrance during the 2011-12 season.  The fifth ranked penalty kill was very effective and helped the team rank third overall in goals against during the season.  The strong penalty kill led by Captain Ryan Callahan also had 8 shorthanded goals which ranked sixth in the NHL.  But for as good as the penalty kill was the power play was equally as bad.  This area has been the club’s achillies heel the last few years.  The Rangers have gotten progressively worse dropping from 13^th in the league in 2009-10 to 18^th in 2010-11  to 23^rd last year.    The decline was inexplicable really with the addition of Brad Richards, who has always excelled throughout his career with the man advantage, the finishing abilities of Gaborik and Callahan and the passing abilities of Stepan and Del Zotto. 

In 2012-13, the expectation will be that the power play will be much better with the addition of Nash.   Surprisingly, Nash has not been a superstar on the power play but he also has not been playing with the talented group of players that the Rangers have at their disposal.  Nash has only had 10, 6 and 6 goals the last three years on the PP.  The Rangers hope that the power play unit will gel quickly because they will need to score more goals with the man advantage in order to have success in 2013.

The fear in trading away Brandon Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov while allowing Ruslan Fedotenko and Brandon Prust to leave as free agents is that the penalty kill will take a step backwards.  However, with Callahan, Stepan, Boyle, Pyatt and Hagelin to go along with Richards, Nash and Kreider who can all kill penalties, the Rangers should not lose much in the way of defense when they are a man down.

Expectations – It appears that the pieces are in place for the Rangers to make a long run into the playoffs and win their first Stanley Cup in 19 years.  They have added scoring and grit at forward and more playoff experience to the lineup.  They will have Rick Nash and Chris Kreider for the full 48 game schedule learning and playing in Coach Tortorella’s system.  I believe the only question marks for the team will be: Will Nash be as good as advertised? Will Gaborik regain the form he had before shoulder surgery? Will the penalty kill hold up with new personnel?  And can the Rangers stay healthy enough during this short sprint of a season to overcome their quality of depth issues at forward and defense? 

The Rangers will have heavy competition for the division and conference titles from Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Boston, and Washington.  I also think Florida, Carolina and Buffalo will be improved as well.  They will be tested by a road leaning schedule in March and April that has them playing 17 of their last 29 games on the road.  On more than one occasion, the schedule has the Rangers travelling to play four games in four different cities in 8 days.  Even though the travel in the East is typically shorter, that is a lot of travel in a short period of time for the hockey club.

I am not one to make predictions for fear of jinxing the team but I do believe this is the best Rangers team in a long while and I do believe they match up well with every team in the East.  However,  I still feel like they may be one defensive forward, one stabilizing defenseman away from making another long run into the playoffs.  Something just feels missing from this set of forwards and defensemen, especially with the subtraction of Dubinsky, Anisimov and Prust.  They also have not really answered the question of who to play with Del Zotto.  If the Rangers can make a couple of additions or a couple of players emerge to fill those roles and the team feels comfortable rolling at least three, if not, all four lines and all six defensemen consistently, the sky is the limit for this hockey club in 2013.