HOCKEY'S HERE: NEW YORK RANGERS

The first hint of fall is in the air. It's getting dark earlier, and soon it will be too cold to spend Saturday nights sharing a 2-4 of Blue and listening to Guns N' Roses at the gravel pit. It's time to air out your gear, sharpen your skates and tape your stick -- it’s hockey season. Sure, your team flat-out ached last season, but there's hope, unless you're an Islanders fan. In that spirit, Out of Left Field offers looks at all 30 NHL teams. Presenting: The New York Rangers.

Last season: 100 points, 3rd in Atlantic Division; lost to New Jersey in first round of the playoffs
Coach: Tom Renney (3rd season with team)
Young gun: Petr Prucha
Store this name away: Nigel Dawes
Hey, get a load of the new guys: Matt Cullen, Aaron Ward, Brendan Shanahan
Blogs (including but not limited to): Ranger Pundit, Rangers Report, Blueshirt Bulletin
Pop culture moment: There's a first-season Friends episode where Ross gets hit in the face with a puck at a Rangers game.

Backed by rookie goalie Henrik Lundqvist and a 123-point campaign from Jaromir Jagr, who took out any frustration at having the 24% salary rollback on opposing goalies, the Rangers overachieved for much of last season, then slowly reverted to their form of previous years once play resumed after the Olympics, so no one outside Lower Manhattan was much surprised when they were easily eliminated by the rival Devils in the first round of the playoffs.

The early line on this year's bunch is that they be taking one step back in order to take two steps forward. The Rangers are like Florida -- anyone who is not old or very young just doesn't fit in. There's still Jagr, and a 37-year-old Brendan Shanahan, both of whom will score their 600th career goals in the next few weeks, but mostly the Rangers are just waiting for the kids to mature before they contemplate a serious Stanley Cup run.

That includes Napoleon Dynamite lookalike Marc Staal, whom the Rangers envision some day joining Fedor Tyutin and 2006 first-round pick Bobby Sanguinetti to give them three defencemen they can build around well into the next decade. It's a similar story in goal, where Al Montoya, whom you might remember as the goalie for the 2004 U.S. team that won the World Junior Hockey Championship, is waiting in the wings to eventually pair up with Lundqvist.

The bottom line, however, is that the Atlantic has two teams that weren't able to improve much, due to salary-cap constraints, plus one that's rebuilding and one that thinks it's rebuilding. The Rangers could very well come up the middle and be close to 100-point team again, but they would probably run out of gas in the playoffs.

Also in Atlantic Division: New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins

Back with more later. Send your thoughts to neatesager@yahoo.ca.