Just when Marc Staal and Michal Rozsival had found their groove as the Rangers’ top defensive pairing, that pesky third wheel Marek Malik had to intervene.

Actually, blame this one on Paul Mara, who ended up spraining his shoulder on the hit from Trent Hunter last night and is almost certainly out tomorrow against the Senators. That leaves Tom Renney with a most unenviable choice: break up the promising duo of Staal and Rozsival, or slide Malik in alongside Jason Strudwick for the most combustible pairing this side of Karel Rachunek and Sandis Ozolinsh.

Renney looks like he’ll be going with the former, meaning Malik and Rozsival, a mainstay of the previous two seasons, will be back together; while Staal will take Mara’s spot with Strudwick. For Malik, it will be his first appearance since injuring his rib Nov. 1 against Washington.

“I was going out of my mind not playing,” Malik said of his absence from the lineup.

I’m not sure fans had the same reaction.

More later…

The reality is when a team loses, even if it’s just one loss out of 10, you talk about everything that is wrong. Naturally after a win, it’s just the opposite.

So with that in mind, some Friday morning rose-colored observations:

The question is already getting old here on the brink of what is only the fourth meeting of the season between the two teams. I don’t root, or at least I don’t root for teams as much as I do stories, but I’ll go on record saying I hope for something to ask tonight other than the obligatory, “What is it about these guys that you can’t solve?”

Granted, I have my theories. While all three Islanders wins so far have been of the one-goal variety, the Rangers have been largely outworked in all three, and that stems from the fact that the Islanders outwork almost every team, but also them knowing they’re going to have to get by on grit and guile against their supposedly more talented rival. So far, even Tom Renney conceded just now, they’ve done that.

Then there is Rick DiPietro. It’s true the Rangers have a knack for making every goaltender they face look like the second coming of Patrick Roy, but with DiPietro, even something as simple as dumping the puck into the zone has been largely counterproductive. While I think Henrik Lundqvist is the superior overall goaltender, he is far inferior to DiPietro when it comes to handling the puck. And when the Rangers wrap the puck hard around the boards and into the Islanders zone, all they’re essentially doing is turning it over.

Renney said the team will try to carry the puck in more against the Islanders tonight, although that, too, can be difficult given how effectively the Islanders clog the zone. Some of you have suggested the diagonal dump-in, which is certainly one good idea. Another is merely a soft chip into the zone. Whatever they do, they need to get the puck deep without giving the Islanders such an easy opportunity to break out.

OK, this concludes today’s edition of chalk talk. As for updates:

The Rangers are up 5-3 on the Islanders right now at the Garden.

I should mention these are the Pee Wee Junior Rangers versus the Junior Islanders.

But drink it in: This may well be the only time all year that there are eight goals scored in a hockey game here.

The Rangers mulled calling someone up from Hartford, but opted against it, which means yes, everyone’s favorite enigma, Marcel Hossa, will skate in Sean Avery’s spot at left wing alongside Scott Gomez and Brendan Shanahan tonight against the Islanders.

Some more notes:

A part of me thinks the Rangers PR staff owes a debt of gratitude to the New York Observer’s John Koblin for this bleak depiction of life on the Knicks beat.

I say this because, while they’re all under one largely dysfunctional Cablevision umbrella, the story underscores how much more pleasant it is covering the Rangers. To be clear, we’ve all had our dust-ups big and small with the Rangers PR staff, and I’m not delusional enough to think their objectives and the media’s objectives are one and the same.

But if you read this story—and I suggest you do—you’ll know there is a difference between a productive, if even occasionally contentious, relationship between a team and its media; and complete insanity, which is basicaly how you’d describe what’s happening down the hall with the Knicks.

Why the difference? A couple of theories: One, the Rangers are good (or relatively good) and the Knicks stink. That always helps.

Two, hockey is hockey and basketball is basketball. The Rangers and the NHL still needs the media—and yes, even the print media, or whatever it is I am these days—to promote the sport and help repair the damage done by the lockout. The NBA, meanwhile, enjoys better ratings on TV so it doesn’t rely as much on the writers. And in the case of the Knicks, it seems they just want their writers to go away.

Granted, there are some common practices between the two. The Observer story talks about Knicks PR staffers monitoring interviews, and that happens occasionally with the Rangers. But more often than not, at least with players, they leave us alone to talk to whomever, about whatever. Yes, there is an overall veil of secrecy at the Garden that can be difficult to penetrate, especially for someone like me in just his second season covering the team. But unlike some of the Knicks writers, I at least don’t feel like the powers-that-be are conspiring against me.

So there you have it. By comparison, things could be a lot worse. Now if only they’ll go back to the playoff custom of giving us free bagels at the rink, I’d really be content.

I don’t know what Sam’s golf obligations are today (by “golf” do you think he meant “sore back”?) but he missed a bit of news. Sean Avery will have arthroscopic surgery tomorrow on the sore wrist that has hampered him all season and he will miss an indefinite amount of time.

Avery skated through a portion of practice today but didn’t arrive until about halfway through. He said the doctors were still looking at results of his CAT scan and MRI and he wanted to keep sharp in case he didn’t need the surgery. Around noon, Avery met with Tom Renney near center ice and they chatted for a couple minutes. From what Renney told me after practice, I get the idea Avery was petitioning his coach to allow him to play against the Islanders and have the surgery on Friday (Avery alluded to a Friday surgery after practice). Obviously, everyone decided it was within the club’s best interest to have the surgery as soon as possible.

“It’s one of those things you just have to deal with,” Avery said. “I’m just sorry for everyone who has to be around me.â€?

“We were going to look at doing it Friday, but it’s probably just better that I get it down now and not go out tomorrow and get in a fight.�

To get an idea as to how long he may be out, a few of us talked to Paul Mara, who said he had a similar procedure in May 2002. Mara said it was minimally invasive, and that he returned to working out two weeks later. Now…Mara’s surgery came after the season, so if you want to concede that Avery may need a little more time to recover than let’s say he’ll probably be out anywhere from 2-4 weeks. (Disclaimer: I’m no doctor, so that’s just an estimate.)

Renney said he’s not sure what this means for the lineup yet. Today he tried Hossa alongside Gomez and Shanny but he said that isn’t set in stone.

“We’re not real firm on that just yet. I think we have some interchangeable parts there,” Renney said. “Marcel has shown an ability to play with different people, but that’s certainly an option.â€?

Renney also said bringing someone up from the farm was a possibility. Someone asked about Nigel Dawes and the coach continued the sentence: “Amongst others, as a matter of fact. I’m thinking about that.�

Someone wanted me to ask about the PP in regards to Petr Prucha. It looks like someone’s been reading your comments!…Seriously though, Prucha skated on the top PP unit at practice, which was heavily devoted to working on the PP and on how to cash in rebounds. (More on that later.) The line was Prucha, Drury, and Jagr.

And while we’re here, the regular lines were:

Straka-Dubi-Jagr

Hossa/Avery-Gomez-Shanny

Prucha-Drury-Callahan

Hollweg-Betts-Orr

Looks like Callahan may play tomorrow. Renney said he will be taken off IR, and they’ll decide the lineup tomorrow.

I told Callahan that it looked good for him because he skated with his usual group today. He smiled as if to say, “Yeah, it does look pretty good.”

And now — after this monumental blog post during Sam’s convalescence — I get to the rebound story. … The Rangers used a new device today at practice. It looked like a block of wood about six inches high and two or three feet wide, but the puck bounced off the face of it like it was plexiglass. A coach would fire a puck off the face of it, and a player would try to grab the rebound and roof it over the board.

Interesting stuff. I thought you guys would like that.

I’ll add a few Avery quotes in a bit. Happy Wednesday…

Tom Renney made a crack yesterday about Brendan Shanahan’s age when explaining why the right wing sat out practice with a sore back.

Everyone had a good laugh, but maybe I should have contained myself.

I am roughly six years younger than Shanahan, and I’ve always liked to think I’m in reasonably good shape for my age. And yet here I am the morning after a late night pick-up game, when a handful of college kids were buzzing around the net all night, and I’m forced to blog with a heating pad on my back.

It’s all downhill from here, folks. First it’s the heating pad. Then it’s the multiple Advils after every game. Pretty soon you’re reverting to your days as a squirt, when you need someone else to tie your skates because you can’t even bend over.

Shanny has always had my respect. But never more so than this morning.

Meanwhile, a brief programming note: I’m tied up with a golf assignment today, meaning Josh will be making a rare appearance out of the bullpen (OK, wrong sports metaphor). Here’s hoping he doesn’t use the blog to reminisce with Chris Drury about all things BU (“Remember when you scored that goal against UNH? That was awesome”).

Either way, I’ll check in later…

It’s been a while since the blog has featured audio, mostly because of the unpredictable server problems of late. I’m not sure there’s any correlation between the two—in fact, I’m pretty sure there isn’t— but it seems like a reasonable enough excuse, so let’s just go with that.

Anyway, the point is I thought my conversation with Marty Straka was worth a listen since the wing has a unique perspective on Jaromir Jagr. For one, he spent 15 games watching him from the press box, and is now back on his line. Plus, they go back to Jagr’s mullet days in Pittsburgh, and maybe even—if such an era ever existed—to his pre-mullet days in the Czech Republic.

Of course, Straka’s not the guy to ask about Jagr’s curious contract situation. Maybe my next audio clip will be an expert on the CBA, although that might be a little on the dry side.

[audio:http://lohud.com/audio/rangers/straka1127.mp3]

More later…

For the first time since the second game of the season, the Rangers could be completely healthy for Thursday’s meeting with the Islanders. Of course, “completely healthy” is a myth in the NHL —more on that in a bit—but at the very least, they could have all of their players active.

What they do, or don’t do, remains in play. For instance: