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Rangers 2008-2009 Schedule Released

Image details: New Jersey Devils v New York Rangers - Game Four served by picapp.com

The NHL has changed its scheduling for this coming season.  Teams will play division rivals 6 times as opposed to 8 and all Eastern teams will play all Western teams as opposed to just a handful.

While I am going to run down a few notable games (against teams other than NJ and PIT), You can view the full schedule here .

The Rangers open the ‘08-’09 campaign in Prague with 2 games against the Lightning on Saturday and Sunday, October 4th and 5th.  After that, the Rangers don’t play until the 10th when the host the Blackhawks in the MSG home opener. 

The first road game (in the states) is one day later when the Blueshirts head to Philly to face the Flyers. 

As for the rest of October, we have games against the Devils, Penguins and Isles among others but there is a stretch of 3 games that I want to note.

On Saturday, the 18th, Renney and co. will head to Hockeytown to face the defending champion Red Wings.  Then, on Monday the 20th, the Rangers will host the Stars featuring Sean Avery. After a few days off, we will head to Columbus where new Rangers Dan Fritsche and Nikolai Zherdev face former Blueshirts, Fedor Tyutin and Christian Backman.

The middle of November should be an interesting time as well.  On the 17th and 19th respectively, Wade Redden and Markus Naslund will host the teams that they spent so many quality years with when the Senators and Canucks head to town. 

In December, the Rangers have an interesting end to 2008.  The team will escape the cold of New York and head to California for 3 games against the Ducks, Kings and Sharks.  After that, we head back to NY for 3 games against the Caps, Devils and Islanders. 

Our longest road stretch of the season will come in January. The Rangers will play 5 straight road games, battling against the Sabres, Senators, Islanders, Blackhawks and Penguins. 

February involves a trip to Dallas to see Sean Avery and co. and it also features a home and home series against the original six rival Maple Leafs. 

A weekend in March will feature 2 afternoon games both against the Flyers. All signs will point to the Sunday game (March 15th @ MSG) being aired nationally on NBC. 

In the 2007 season we played our last 9 or so games against teams win the division, this year it couldn’t be more different.  The 5 games we play in April showcase 3- non division games (Car, Bos, Mon) before ending with another home and home series vs. Philly.

This years All-Star game will be played in Montreal, where the Canadiens are celebrating their 100th anniversary.

So there you have it, the ‘08-’09 season in a nutshell… Now, as for some other Rangers personnel concerns–

The Rangers have reached new agreements with Fritsche and Nigel Dawes but are still in talks with Fredrik Sjostrom and Lauri Korpikoski. The Rangers also sent Ryan Hollweg to Toronto for a future 5th round pick.  Lastly, there has still been no word on a ‘one more year’ type campaign for Brendan Shanahan. 

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 17th, 2008 at 12:53 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.