Rangers Must Table Booth

The Rangers complete their annual two-game Thanksgiving road trip to Florida tonight with the first of a home-and-home series against the Panthers. The match-up pits teams at opposite ends of the conference standings, the Rangers back in first in points (they still trail in point percentage, having played those extra games) and the Panthers tied for last. The Panthers will be without their second leading scorer Nathan Horton as well as one of their other main offensive weapons, Cory Stillman. But the player to watch for Florida is David Booth, who has scored three of their last seven goals and seven in the last eight games, including all three goals in a 3-1 win over Anaheim in the first of those games.

Back-up goalie Craig Anderson will be in net after having replaced starter Tomas Vokoun during the Panthers' last game against the Devils, a game in which the Panthers erased a 2-0 deficit in the final two-plus minutes of the game before losing in overtime. Anderson has only made eight appearances this season, but his goals against average is a full goal lower than Vokoun's (2.01 to 3.01) and his save percentage of .942 is excellent. Anderson, you may recall, posted consecutive 1-0 shutouts last March to bolster Florida's ultimately unsuccessful playoff push, stopping a total of 93 shots, including 53 against the Islanders.

At Blueshirt Bulletin+ today, we discuss Petr Prucha and Michal Rozsival, based on reports from beat writers in Florida. BB+ is also where you will find today's compilation of media links and all reader commentary. Click here to read BB+ if you subscribe to Blueshirt Bulletin and have registered for BB+ access. If you need instructions on how to access BB+, write to us at Blueshirt@mindspring.com. If you are not a subscriber, E-mail us or click here to learn how to subscribe to the magazine and get quick access to BB+.

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