NEW YORK, NY – The Rangers are playing some tremendously mediocre hockey right now. If you’re a betting person, you should always bet the over with them. 
Every game will probably end 7-4. Whether they win or lose depends on the night and who they’re playing. Most games will end in a loss.
The Broadway Blues’ first two games saw the team soaring with their top line of Panarin, Zibanejad, and Buchnevich scoring just about all of their goals. Then they had a week off and since then, things have gone awry; only two wins of their next eight games to finish out October.
With the losing run came the line reshuffles and lineup changes one would expect. The Rangers traded Vlad Namestnikov to Ottawa for a bucket of practice pucks. The timing of the trade was strange in that it should have happened over the summer. The move cleared cap space and a roster spot. They called up Filip Chytil, whose season started in Hartford.
The results are improved play… They’ve won two of their last three, with a heavy defeat to Boston’s Cheesy Bruins, between wins against the Sabres and Lighting. The win against the Tampa came without Mika Zibanejad in the lineup. Mika was hit by Patrice Bergeron in the Rangers’ 7-4 loss to the Bruins and suffered a neck injury. He’ll miss today’s game in Nashville, his second straight.
There are rumors out of Rangers camp that they are looking to trade Chris Kreider well before the deadline. I’m not sure what that will do value-wise, before teams get more desperate for that missing piece at the deadline. But Kreider is and will continue to be one of the top players on the trade block and some teams may want to acquire him to play 50 games instead of 20. But I don’t think he’s going anywhere before the New Year and probably not going anywhere until mid-February. We’ll see where the Rangers are at that point. But they surely won’t be anywhere near resembling a contending team. That won’t happen for a few seasons… at the earliest.
Switching from the ice to the diamond…
The New York Mets hired Carlos Beltran to be their next manager. Beltran played 7 seasons with the Mets and 3 with the Yankees. The switch-hitting slugger was always known for having a great mind for baseball and he interviewed for the Yankees manager position that eventually went to Aaron Boone two years ago. Beltran worked in the Yankee organization as an advisor to GM Brian Cashman.
Now Beltran will take his first coaching job as manager of a Mets team that sense the window on World Series contention closing. Bell-tron doesn’t have any managerial experience but he’s looking to follow in the footsteps of Aaron Boone, who managed the Yankees to 100 wins in each of his first two seasons as a Major League manager. Beltran is very familiar with the Mets and the New York market, so I don’t think there will be any issues in that respect. His challenge will be getting the most out of the team he’s inheriting. One gets the impression that it won’t be a problem for Beltran.
