Rangers center Artem Anisimov underwent surgery yesterday to remove a small bone chip in his right wrist.
He sustained the injury May 23 while skating with Russia in the gold-medal game at the 2010 World Championship in Cologne, Germany.
The procedure was performed by Dr. Martin Posner at the NYU…

Rangers center Artem Anisimov underwent successful surgery on his right wrist Tuesday in Manhattan, and is expected to make a full recovery in four-to-six weeks. He injured it playing for Russia in May’s World Championships.

Artem Anisimov underwent surgery on his right wrist today that was a success, the Rangers announced. The team expects the 22-year-old center to make a full recovery in four-to-six weeks….

From the Rangers:

ARTEM ANISIMOV UNDERGOES SUCCESSFUL SURGERY
Procedure on wrist performed earlier today

New York, June 1, 2010 – New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that forward Artem Anisimov underwen…

Anisimov

New York Rangers President and General Manager Glen Sather announced today that forward Artem Anisimov underwent successful surgery earlier today to remove…

The numbers are all stacked against Philadelphia now, if the numbers still matter to anyone in these playoffs. Of the 33 teams to have swept the first two games at home in the Final, 31 have gone on to win the Stanley Cup. The losers? Last year’s Detroit Red Wings (vs. Pittsburgh), and the 1971 Chicago Blackhawks (vs. Montreal).

You simply can’t count out the Flyers after the road they’ve taken to reach this point, and plus, they’re going home now. But they’ll have to make adjustments after dropping two very different one-goal games in Chicago - and Danny Briere was the loudest voice on that, criticizing his team pretty strongly for taking a determination to tighten up defensively and turning it into near-retreat.

“We didn’t give them much, I understand that,” Briere said. “But it’s not really our type of hockey. We didn’t forecheck, we didn’t create much offensively. We didn’t spend much time in their zone. Obviously when they take the lead they’re going to play a little bit more passive and give us a chance. The first two periods were way too conservative for what we’re used to seeing from the Flyers.”

Asked about Antti Niemi’s strong night - 33 saves, particularly good in the third period and with a hot catching glove - Briere said: “Honestly, I don’t think we tested him very much. I thought we made him look good with outside shots way too often. I thought he played well in the third period, but we didn’t create much traffic. We didn’t have many quality chances. We have to do a better job.

“We all talked about tightening up defensively. But tightening up defensively doesn’t mean no forecheck and no offense. I thought we sat back on our heels way too much.”

So in the end the difference in Game 2 is a goal by Ben Eager, a former Flyer who scored the second playoff goal of his career on a 40-foot wrist shot that Michael Leighton said he couldn’t pick up quickly enough. “He used the D as a screen and made a good shot,” Leighton said of Eager. “That’s not saying he’s Alex Ovechkin.”

The questions in Philadelphia are sure to center around Peter Laviolette’s lineup choices tonight - Daniel Carcillo, every Ranger fan’s favorite, was back in after three games as a healthy scratch, and on the blue line, Ryan Parent - poor guy played one shift in the first period of Game 1 and hasn’t seen the ice again - came out with Oskars Bartulis going onto the third pair with Lukas Krajicek. Those two were kept on the ice late in the second after Leighton had frozen a puck for an own-zone faceoff, which was controlled by Chicago and turned into Marian Hossa’s tiebreaking stuff-in.

“We have to trust in all of our defensemen out there,” Laviolette said, when asked why he didn’t change his D during the stoppage. “We look to keep them away from certain people when we can. But our coverage was there - we had man-on-man.”

Carcillo got some time working onto the top line, with Simon Gagne moving around too, but barely factored in the game apart from an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in the feisty first. Eager, meanwhile, was skating with Jonathan Toews and Dustin Byfuglien when he scored his goal.

“He looked like a 50-goal scorer on that goal,” said Patrick Sharp (who didn’t quite look like one when his shot at an empty net in the last half-minute clanged the post). “I’ve seen him do it in practice all the time.” So why not in the Stanley Cup Final?

From the NHL:

2010 STANLEY CUP FINAL POST-GAME NOTES – GAME 2
PHILADELPHIA FLYERS 1 AT CHICAGO BLACKHAWKS 2 – MAY 31, 2010

HOME CLUBS WITH 2-0 SERIES LEAD IN STANLEY CUP FINAL

The all-time record of home clubs sweeping Games 1 and 2 o…

Happy Anniversary, New York. Tuesday marks 10 years since Glen Sather took hold of the unfettered reins of the Rangers as GM and president amid all that fanfare and hope of a franchise rebirth. That’s 3,653 days under Slats, one entire decade of … how to put this?