UPDATE, 6 p.m. Hossa signed a one-year deal for $780,000, a raise of $180,000 from last season. There is still nothing new on the Sean Avery ruling.

For all the potential animosity between the Rangers and Sean Avery, they avoided similar acrimony with Marcel Hossa by agreeing to terms with the forward before his own arbitration hearing.

I don’t have terms yet, but should shortly….

While we await the results of the Sean Avery arbitration hearing and marvel at the harsh treatment the left wing is receiving from Rangers management, let’s try to put things in historical perspective.

For much of his tenure in New York, Glen Sather has been known, depending on who you ask, as either a bold, careless, or at times, even passive executive. And yet what’s easy to forget is that the shrewd negotiating tactics we’re seeing from Sather right now were very much his trademark during his heyday in Edmonton.

Bear in mind that Sather was renowned for building up a player during the season, and then tearing them down when it came time to negotiate a contract that summer. It was the reason for the departure of Paul Coffey in 1987, when the relationship between the defenseman and Sather had soured enough that Coffey was eventually traded to Pittsburgh; and it came up with a number of other players in that era as well.

I mention this not to endorse what Sather may be doing, because for one, I’m not sure it’s the right tone with a player as tempestuous as Avery. But it may help explain some of what’s going on.

More later…

Sports Business Journal is reporting the NHL is in discussions with ESPN about returning to ESPN2 as early as the 2008-09 season.

Say what you want about the progress being made at Versus, but getting back to ESPN in any form would be a vital step for the league’s health.

Credit goes to Larry Brooks for uncovering the particulars of a brief submitted by the Rangers for Sean Avery’s arbitration hearing today in Toronto.

In it, Glen Sather dismisses much of the left wing’s on-ice contributions last spring and even refers to him as a “detriment to the team.”

Naturally, you’d have to think much of this is mere posturing by the Rangers, but it still strikes me as an odd move given Avery’s unquestioned importance to the team—both last year and presumably, moving forward.

I’m one of those who thinks the stars may have aligned for Avery when he came to New York last year, meaning that he happened to be the right player who arrived at just the right time. But other than shooting his mouth off to us on occasion—i.e. promising to hurt the Sabres before the Buffalo series—I never got the sense that he was anything other than a guy that wanted to see the team win. In fact, Avery was often quick to dismiss the credit that came his way toward the end of last season.

Things are getting strange, folks. I admittely have been out of the loop somewhat this summer. But this is yet another move by the Rangers (see: departures of Don Maloney, Jed Ortmeyer, and Matt Cullen) that leaves me scratching my head…

I’m still on vacation but at least back in front of a computer and I see not everyone in the comment section has been on their best behavior.

Maybe it’s the heat…or maybe some of you need to make better use of your time. We’ll revisit that soon.

Meanwhile, the Rangers are apparently interested in Michael Peca, or at least Michael Peca is interested in the Rangers. I like Peca, always have. But again, I’d prefer to have seen the Rangers hold on to Matt Cullen.

In other news, for those of you from the immediate area, check out our impressive coverage of the Empire State Games. I wish I could take credit for some of it, but I can’t. Like I said, I’m on vacation.

Until later…

A lot to go over, but I’m technically on vacation. The release is below. Note that a separate release has Ken Gernander taking over Schoenfeld’s job as Hartford head coach.

I’ll be back with more later….

New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that the club has promoted Jim Schoenfeld to Assistant General Manager, Player Personnel & General Manager, Hartford Wolf Pack; Cameron Hope to Assistant General Manager, Hockey Administration; Gordie Clark to Director, Player Personnel; Jim Hammett to Head Amateur Scout and John Rosasco to Vice President, Public Relations and Player Recruitment.

Rosasco is a 19-year veteran of the Rangers Public Relations department, currently serving as the vice president of public relations, where he oversees all aspects of the public relations department. In his expanded role, Rosasco will also be responsible for management of the player recruitment process, including involvement in researching prospective free agents, as well as the development and implementation of all aspects of the team’s communications and marketing to free agents during the recruitment process. Over his tenure with the Rangers, which began in 1987, Rosasco has served a number of roles in the public relations department, including as a statistician, public relations manager, assistant director of public relations, and director of public relations, before being promoted to vice president of public relations in 1998.

Below is the release from the Rangers.

Sorry, guys, no Puerto Rico trip this year, but here’s the good news: You get to go to Detroit!

New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced the Rangers 2007 pre-season schedule today, featuring three games at Madison Square Garden and a total of six games in nine days.

The Rangers exhibition schedule consists of three back-to-back sets, including games at Madison Square Garden on Friday, September 21 vs. New Jersey and Saturday, September 22 vs. Philadelphia, which will kick off the 2007 pre-season. The Rangers will then head to Long Island to face the cross-town rival New York Islanders at Nassau Coliseum on Monday, September 24 in the first of back-to-back games. In the second game of the back-to-back set, the Blueshirts will take on the Red Wings in Detroit on Tuesday, September 25. On Friday, September 28, the Rangers return to The Garden to host the Islanders in their final home pre-season game before wrapping up the pre-season schedule at Philadelphia versus the Flyers on Saturday, September 29 in the second of back-to-back games.

The 2007 New York Rangers will take the ice for the first day of training camp on Friday, September 14. All players will go through physical testing at the Madison Square Garden Training Facility on Thursday, September 13.

Admittedly, mathematics are not my strength. Still a quick look at the Rangers roster reveals a surplus at defense.

Consider the players the team already had under contract: Fedor Tyutin, Dan Girardi, Marek Malik, Michal Rozsival, Paul Mara, Thomas Pock, Jason Strudwick.

Now add the newly acquired Andrew Hutchinson, who has to be in New York since he can’t be exposed to waivers.

And now add Marc Staal, who is by all accounts ready to play in the NHL this season.

That’s nine players, which would immediately suggest Glen Sather is poised to dump at least one high-priced salary, except the team already did that yesterday with the questionable trade of Matt Cullen, who’s not even a defenseman. That’s not to say Sather doesn’t want to cut a little more fat while he’s at it, but you would think he would only do it if he’s got something specific in the works.

Finally, there is this far-fetched but still intriguing wrinkle: according to players who have been working out with Darius Kasparaitis in the area this summer, the 34-year-old defenseman has worked his way back into impressive shape, running and skating every day until a recent trip to his native Lithuania. The defenseman has apparently shed all of the excess weight that he carried into training camp last year, and is intent on staying with the NHL club rather than being returned to Hartford.

I have a hard time seeing it happen, especially since Kaspar is expected to make $3.16 million in 2007-08, and also because just being in shape doesn’t mean you’re still capable of playing in the NHL. But it is something to keep an eye on as training camp pulls closer.

In an obvious concession to their precarious salary cap situation, the Rangers traded Matt Cullen to Carolina for defenseman Andrew Hutchinson, center Joe Barnes and a third round pick in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft.

Hutchinson has played in just 95 NHL games, and only 41 last year.

Seeing how this trade seems to be more about freeing some cap space, I’ll tell you up front I’m skeptical, and only in small part because Cullen was one of the most pleasant guys to get to know last year. More important, I thought he was better than his numbers showed, and was poised to have a much-improved 2007-08 having had a year to settle in New York.

Cullen was arguably the team’s fastest skater, and one of their hardest-working, but now with both he and Jed Ortmeyer gone, the Rangers will be without their two best penalty killers from last season (although Sean Avery had joined their ranks toward the end).

I like the idea of giving a Brandon Dubinsky or Artem Anisimov a chance next year, but similar to the Dominic Moore trade at this time last year, you wonder if the team really thought through what they’d be missing.

Like the old Elvis concerts, Rangers fans couldn’t be convinced that Sheldon Souray wasn’t headed to New York until the defenseman was completely out of the picture.

Now Souray is officially gone after signing a five-year deal with the Oilers, meaning you can all breathe a little easier.

It’s hard to say how close the Rangers got to Souray. My understanding is the defenseman was more serious about the Rangers than they were about him, but either way, it’s a welcome sign that it didn’t happen.

The reason I say this has less to do with Souray’s supposed defensive liabilities, or for that matter, anything about the player specifically. Instead, it has to do with fending off the old Ranger mentality that they could simply snag any player they want.

Even in an offseason in which they’ve signed Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, and re-signed Brendan Shanahan and Henrik Lundqvist, the Rangers have still done so within the confines of the salary cap—albeit dangerously close to the cap—and by exercising their own amount of restraint.

If there’s a lesson to be learned from the previous decade of futility, it’s that talent alone doesn’t mean much. Don’t get me wrong: the Rangers were already an impressive team on paper, and they’ve become that much more so this month. But the additions they’ve made have as much to do with chemistry as they do with star power.

Throw Souray into the mix, however, and I’m not sure you can make the same case.

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In other news, the Matt Cullen watch continues, with the center today telling Larry Brooks that he wants to stay in New York.

I don’t doubt that Cullen wants to stay, especially since he now has a good chance to win a second Stanley Cup in three years. The question is whether the Rangers can afford to keep him. They certainly could if they shed another contract on defense, which seems to make more sense given the likely arrival of Marc Staal.

Stay tuned…