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HEAD COACH
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John Muckler
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ROSTER
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C - Wayne Gretzky, Manny Malhotra, Petr Nedved, Sean
Pronger, Marc Savard. LW - Brent Fedyk, Adam Graves, Darren
Langdon, Kevin Stevens, Esa Tikkanen. RW - Todd Harvey, Mike
Knuble, John MacLean, Niklas Sundstrom. D - Jeff Beukeboom,
Brian Leetch, Stan Neckar, Peter Popovic, Ulf Samuelsson, Mathieu
Schneider, Ruman Ndur, Chris Tamer. G - Mike Richter, Dan
Cloutier.
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INJURIES
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Petr Nedved, c (minor knee sprain, day-to-day). Rumun
Ndur, d (sprained right knee, day-to-day).
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TRANSACTIONS
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Sent Esa Tikkanen, lw, to Hartford (AHL).
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GAME RESULTS
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12/23 Carolina L 1-0
12/26 at Carolina W 6-3
12/30 at Phoenix L 3-1
12/31 at Colorado W 6-3
01/02 at St. Louis W 1-0
01/04 San Jose W 4-3
01/06 New Jersey L 5-2
01/07 at Washington L 5-1
01/10 Tampa Bay W 5-2
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STANDINGS
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Atlantic Division GP W L T PTS GF GA
Philadelphia 40 21 9 10 52 120 82
New Jersey 39 22 12 5 49 116 104
Pittsburgh 36 19 10 7 45 107 94
NY Rangers 40 16 17 7 39 110 111
NY Islanders 42 13 26 3 29 96 124
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TEAM NEWS
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by Alex Frias, New York Rangers Correspondent
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After shooting themselves in the foot for three months, the
Blueshirts have a chance to see whether they have what it takes
to lose to New Jersey in the first round of the playoffs or just
watch the Devils from home.
With the 5-2 win over Tampa Bay, the Rangers pulled to within
five points of Boston for the eighth and final playoff spot. It
also made for a good start to what looks like a seemingly soft
stretch of six games that will take the Rangers into the All-Star
break, as five of the six are at home and five of the six are
against teams behind them in the standings.
"We keep putting ourselves in a situation where all the games are
so important," Rangers captain Brian Leetch said. "If you look
at the records of the teams coming in, they've struggled this
year. So it's an opportunity, if we play well, going against
teams that are having more problems than we are."
Another One Bites the Dust: After leading the team in
scoring in the preseason, Esa Tikkanen had been relegated to
little more than a fourth line player. Well, now he's been made
a minor league player as he was demoted to the Rangers' AHL
affiliate in Hartford.
"I don't think his play was up to standard," GM Neil Smith said.
"We didn't anticipate this. We hoped he'd be a contributing
member of the team and earn his bonuses."
It was clear shortly after training camp that Tikkanen had no
business being on the team, much less being counted on as a
regular. More power to my man Tikkanen for getting as much money
as he got. He joins Scott Fraser, Bob Errey and Jeff Finley
among players who are raking in NHL money while playing in the
minors.
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