Red White and Blueshirts

After taking the day off yesterday, the Rangers returned to practice today but were minus two of their key players when forwards Ryan Callahan and Marian Gaborik were sent home due to illness. Coach Tortorella had this to say about his two missing players “they were sick, colds or something, and we wanted to get them out of here and keep them away from the other guys.” It won’t be known until tomorrow whether either player will be unable to dress for the game against the Devils.

After the departure of Callahan and Gaborik, the team practiced using the following line combinations:

Prospal-Dubinsky-Lisin

Avery-Drury-Kotalik

Higgins-Anisimov-Voros

Brashear and Boyle were spares.

Let’s hope Cally and Gaborik are feeling better tomorrow and this was just precautionary as the Rangers need both of them in the lineup tomorrow night as the team hopes to rebound from the beating it took against San Jose.

In other news:

-After his two periods of rest on Monday, Henrik Lundqvist is expected to start tomorrow night.

-There are no current plans to call up a player from Hartford in case Callahan or Gaborik are out but that could change sometime tomorrow and it would be expected that Evgeny Grachev would get the call.

- Former Rangers superstars Mark Messier and Mike Richter (along with Red Wings Senior VP Jim Devellano) recieved the Lester Patrick Award, which is given for outstanding service to hockey in the United States, earlier this evening . The award was presented to the National Hockey League by the Rangers in 1966. It honors the memory of Patrick, who spent 50 years in hockey as a player, coach and general manager and was a pioneer in the sport’s development. Congratulations to all 3 of these very deserving honorees. For more on the award and the ceremony click here

Finally, here is an interesting video of Michael Del Zotto talking about the success of the power play this season and John Tortorella shares his thoughts on the play of Del Zotto and fellow rookie Matt Gilroy.