- There is this really cool place called Black-Eyed Sally's in Hartford that has decent food and always have awesome rock/soul/blues musicians. You can get a table, drink, and eat cajun food all night long while listening to sick guitarists and singers. I should email Aaron Voros and tell him. What's his email address? Oh, there it is. AVoros34@hartfordwolfpack.com.

- No, seriously. Who will come out of the lineup when Sean Avery returns? Enver Lisin, who plays hard, is fast as hell, and hits people twice his size on every shift? Brian Boyle, who had a rocky first game but then picked it up tenfold and now even kills penalties? Donald Brashear? What happens when you take the enforcer out of the lineup? Well, just ask Donald Brashear, who took liberties with the Rangers in the playoffs when Colton Orr sat out. It's got to be Voros, who took an awful penalty with a 2-2 game (of course, Brashear took a horrible penalty of his own late in the game, but Brashear serves a purpose while all Voros brings is a pretty cool beard).

- Artem Anisimov seemed to have a breakout game. The assist aside, he played well offensively. He finally seemed comfortable out there, especially on the shift where he had the assist. He was controlling the play and if Ales Kotalik didn't score, Anisimov was waiting for the puck with an open net.

- I was ready to berate Chris Higgins for a very selfish play when he stole the puck in the Capitals' zone then shot instead of passing to Drury. But on replays (both MSG's and my TiVo's), you can see that Jose Theodore was showing a lot of 5-hole, then snatched it away as soon as Higgins shot. So, no, not a bad play by Higgins at all, but I think Theodore trapped him into shooting when he knew he would close the hole immediately.

- It's not that the Rangers of 2008-09 would've quit when the Capitals went up 3-2 with about 12 minutes left because they wouldn't have. However, they probably wouldn't have tied it up because they were missing a player like Marian Gaborik. There were a few games where Markus Naslund or Nikolai Zherdev tied it with under a minute left, but they were missing that certain something - call it a sniper, a game-breaker, a superstar, whatever you want to. They had the drive last year, most of the time, but not always the skills.

- I used to formerly say that I would like to have Wade Redden on my team at $1.5M-$2M/year. I thought he was a decent 3rd-4th defender who was making top-5-in-the-NHL-money. So I thought he was okay on the team just eating valuable cap space.

Not true this season. He has simply become a bad player, and the emergence of Mike Del Zotto and Matt Gilroy only highlights his flaws. He coughs up the puck, he bobbles it when trying to clear the zone, he gets beat in footraces, he lets skaters blow by him, he doesn't finish checks, and for that matter, he doesn't start checks either. If, for some ungodly reason, a team would like to have him and would like to give the Rangers a 5th or 6th round draft choice, Glen Sather should accept that trade.

- You'll read about Henrik Lundqvist giving up that goal everywhere (who cares, they won, he's never done it before and he won't do it again). You'll also read about Ryan Callahan's play (spirited and gritty, but I've been saying that since we first started this website in February of 2008).

- Kotalik for Zherdev. Vinny Prospal for Naslund. A better Brandon Dubinsky. Chris Drury in a less-prominent role where he isn't relied on for goals. A young D who actually try. Two players from Long Island. And a Petr Prucha-lookalike in Lisin. I'll take it. It's not scary this year if the Rangers go down a goal or two like it was last year. Plus, if Lundqvist gives up a bad goal, it's not the end of the world because the forwards - and D - can put one home.

- Seriously, it's October. Why isn't Voros scoring? This is his month!