NY Rangers: Tortorella,
known for his no-nonsense approach and competitive nature of his
teams, is confident Nash will fit in despite never winning a Stanley
Cup Playoff game (he played just 4 games in 9 seasons with the Blue
Jackets, getting swept by Detroit 4-0 in 2009). Nash was acquired in
a trade July 23, with New York sending Brandon Dubinsky, Artem
Anisimov, Tim Erixon and a first-round draft pick to Columbus.
Tortorella coached the Rangers to the best regular-season record in
the Eastern Conference last season and led them through 2 rounds of
the playoffs before they were eliminated by New Jersey in the Eastern
Conference Finals. Nash is expected to help an offense that struggled
to score at times during the regular season and the playoffs; the
Rangers were 11th in goals per game in the regular season at 2.71,
but averaged just 2.15 goals per game in the playoffs.
John
Tortorella speaking to the Bluehshirts United website: "The
thing I like about Nash, and I haven't even met him face to face, in
one conversation with him, he's all business. Everyone I have talked
to about him says he's not a real high-maintenance guy [he] wants to
play hard, wants to play every day and practice every day. I think we
have him at a really good time in his career, and I think he's going
to fit in with us tremendously. We did some homework on Nash (Brad
Richards knows him a little bit), I talked to other players in the
League and to coaches that have coached him, and it is the right fit,
it is the right time of his career to be here. I think he has the
hunger to get there and become that go-to guy in the playoffs. In
Nash you are bringing in one of the top power forwards in the
National Hockey League, We're very excited to have picked up a player
that we think is just going to bust out and get to the next level of
his career coming to the Rangers."
Nashville:
The Predators today signed veteran defenseman Scott Hannan to a
one-year, $1 million contract. Hannan, 33, has amassed 197 points
(33+164) as well as 522 penalty minutes in 908 regular-season games
with San Jose, Colorado, Washington and Calgary. He entered the NHL
in 1998, as a first-round pick (No. 23) for the sharks. Hannan scored
12 points (2+10) in 78 games with Calgary last season. Hannan leads
all defensemen in games played in the last 10 seasons with 798. He
averaged 20:21 of ice time last year and has averaged at least 20
minutes in nine of the last 10 seasons. The Richmond, B.C., native
was part of the gold medal-winning Canadian squad at the 2004 World
Cup of Hockey. He joins captain Shea Weber as a former member of the
Kelowna Rockets of the WHL in the Predators organization. With
Hannan's signing, the Nashville now have 2 defensemen with more than
800 games of NHL experience for the first time in franchise history,
Hal Gill the other with 1,070.
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