Rangers Keep Young D-Men

Just days after the Rangers announced the extension of their franchise goalie they also locked up two of their young defensemen for the next couple of years.

Dan Girardi and Fedor Tyutin, linemates on the ice, both signed multi-year extensions over the weekend.

Girardi was the first to re-up when signed a two-year $3.1 million extension on Saturday that will pay him $1.5 million in 2008-09 and $1.6 million in 2009-10. Then Tyutin received a four-year $11.4 million deal on Sunday which will keep him on Broadway through the 2011-12 season.

Girardi, 23-years old, got quite a raise from the $550,000 he was making this season, but $1.5 million is still not bad for a second-pair defenseman whose skills are likely to increase.

"I'm really happy about it," Girardi told Newsday. "I wasn't worried about it; I let my agent handle it. I'm not thinking about those two years right now; it's getting into sync for a good playoff run."

Tyutin, 24-years old, is getting an even nicer raise from the $1.025 he is making this season. $2.85 will obviously be a decent cap hit, but many teams have expressed interest in the defenseman with the powerful hip-check as the trade deadline draws closer. So the Rangers would rather lock him up now than risk receiving an offer-sheet for him during the off-season.

"It feels good when somebody wants to keep you and they rely on you," Tyutin said in the NY Dailynews. "I just have to keep playing my game and improve and prove that they made the right choice."

With these deals in place the Rangers now have a young core of defenders, Marc Staal, Tyutin, and Girardi, locked up for the next couple of years. This will make it easier for Glen Sather to concentrate on who to add or subtract through trade without worrying about who is going to be on the blue-line next season.

The deals do make less likely that the Rangers will resign Michal Rozsival during the off-season. The Rangers were already short of cap space before they threw money at Henrik Lundqvist last week and resigned the pair of defenseman. Now they will be hard pressed to find the space needed to sign Rozsival to the $4-6 million deal he'll be looking for as a first-line defenseman.

Both Girardi and Tyutin were restricted free-agents who would be exposed to offer sheets this upcoming summer. The only other RFA that Rangers have at the NHL level are Nigel Dawes and Marcel Hossa.

Brandon Shanahan, Sean Avery, Martin Straka, Paul Mara, Marek Malik, Rozsival, Jason Strudwick, and Steve Valiquette are unrestricted free-agents. Jaromir Jagr becomes a free-agent if he fails to reach 84 points and the Rangers fail to make it past the first round of the playoffs.

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For Rangers Defense Wins

The Rangers have won five games in a row and face the New York Islanders tonight, the only team to beat them in three weeks.

As a team they have scored the third fewest goals in the NHL, but have been able to win due to a commitment to defense which has seen contributions by everyone from Henrik Lundqvist to a pair of back checking 600-goal scorers.

Lately it has become more obvious that the once perceived weakness of the Rangers, their blue-line, is becoming an area of strength.

Coming into this season most of the talk surrounding the Rangers was focused on the idea that new centers Chris Drury and Scott Gomez would lead an offensive juggernaut to the Stanley Cup. As they sputtered early focus changed to fixing the defense with bigger more offensive players like Sheldon Souray and Ed Jovanovski who might be able to jumpstart the offense. Instead what has taken over the Rangers is their group of young mobile defensemen who play strong fundamental hockey.

"I think we've got guys that are certainly unheralded and maybe have yet to make their mark in a significant way in the league," Head Coach Tom Renney said to the NY Daily News. "That doesn't mean they're not good defensemen.”

The rise of 20-year old rookie Marc Staal, who replaced Marek Malik as a first pair defenseman, has coincided with a less vocalized call for a trade. Also, each time Fedor Tyutin hip-checks an opponent or Dan Girardi makes a poised breakout pass it’s becoming more obvious that this is going to be the road to the Stanley Cup.

"Manhandling guys is history. The skills you have to have now to play defense in this league are skating ability, being positionally sound, poise with the puck and hockey sense,” Phoenix director of player personnel and former NHL defenseman Tom Kurvers told the Daily News. “Their guys have that."

Lundqvist is as stellar as ever in net, but the team’s goals against average has dropped from 2.57 last season to just 1.79 this year even as they have failed to add that big name, pre-lockout style defenseman so many have called for. In fact is has been the removal of guys who were once all-stars like Sandis Ozolinsh and Darius Kasparaitis that has lead to players like Michal Rosival to flourish and come into their own as top defensemen capable to leading the team.

Only just now are the Rangers finding their grove offensively, scoring four goals in four of their last five games, but it is their crop of young defensemen, Staal, Girardi, and Tyutin, along with capable veterans like Rosival and Paul Mara who are helping them win now. This group has the ability to do the little things like staying mobile and focusing on making good first passes, not just moving guys out of the front of the net and holding the puck along the boards.

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