Ranger Holiday Cheer

With tonight the first night of Hanukkah and Christmas just around the corner - it's time for some feel good holiday special type Ranger news.

Okay - here's the first one:

Staal may be cleared for contact by Christmas. Now - the Rangers aren't saying anything officially - but Dave Puck's highly places source (a hidden microphone in the Broadway Hat) tells us that Marc may be cleared to resume contact drills as soon as later this week.

As evidence we offer the following: on the player skate Monday, Staal, for the first time all year, was wearing the same red practice shirt as the other Rangers. Before this he was strictly in green. So here's hoping that Staal can continue to improve and can get himself back on the team.

And here's your 2nd Holiday Special:

The NHL has instituted their annual Holiday Roster Freeze. This is not a delicious frozen beverage made from shaved arena ice - but rather a rule that prevents all NHL teams from making trades or sending players to the Minor leagues from midnight last night through December 27th.

Why is this a big deal? It means that the Rangers cannot demote Sean Avery back to the Hartford Whale until next week at the earliest. We're thankful for small favors.

And our third Holiday item. At first we were going with the Rangers getting exclusive rights to bid for the Japanese player Yu Darvish - but that turned out to be a baseball story (Texas Rangers). So we're going with Mike Rupp:

Sidelined by a knee injury only 7 games into the season - Big Mike finally makes it back into the lineup. Good to see he's feeling fit and healthy enough to start injuring opponents with his fists once again.

Happy Holidays Folks!


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