Tonight, Madison Square Garden welcomes back their New York Rangers to kickoff their 2007-08 NHL regular season against the Florida Panthers.
The game also marks the Ranger debut of two NHL stars in Chris Drury and Scott Gomez as well as the NHL debut of Marc Staal. For these players, playing in an MSG opening night will be unlike anything they have ever experienced before so look for them to feel the jitters early on, especially Staal.
In last season's opener, Jaromir Jagr scored on the first shot of the game, as he fed off the energy of becoming the team's captain as well as the energy of the Garden crowd. Tonight should be no different as the team and its fans will look to him to lead them to the promised land.
If all goes according to plan, Tom Renney's lines will look like this tonight:
Offense
Martin Straka-Chris Drury-Jaromir Jagr
Sean Avery-Scott Gomez-Brendan Shanahan
Ryan Callahan-Brandon Dubinsky-Petr Prucha
Marcel Hossa-Blair Betts-Ryan Hollweg
Defense
Michal Rozsival-Marek Malik
Daniel Girardi-Fedor Tyutin
Paul Mara-Marc Staal
Extra: Jason Strudwick
Goalies
Henrik Lundqvist
Stephen Valiquette
I hope everyone enjoys the game tonight. I will be there in my usual seat (my dad has season tickets) in section 222, row C, seat 6 if anyone feels like coming down to meet me.
For questions, comments and hip checks, feel free to e-mail me at
[email protected]
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