JUST when, for 64 games, it was safe for opponents in every part of the rink, he’s baaaaaaaaaack, clearly determined that his second run with the Rangers not be a sloppy second. Fresh from Hartford, fresh from a stint in a rehab facility where…

Sean Avery is going on re-entry waivers Monday, the final step in the process by which the Stars are ridding themselves of the most hated man in hockey and the Rangers, mired in a slump that has made a postseason berth problematic, are welcoming…

Basically, the Rangers had a coaching opening because their players can’t find any openings behind goalies. With Jaromir Jagr in Omsk and Pierre Larouche in retirement, John Tortorella has given interim assistant coach Jim Schoenfeld the task of…

BRANDON Dubinsky’s stick, which deflected in Paul Mara’s point drive in the first minute of the first period, clearly was below the crossbar, but referee Bill McCreary claimed replay officials in Toronto disallowed it, probably just on general…

THE “clueless” John Tortorella ran his first snappy practice yesterday of a Ranger team he admits to knowing not enough about. In time, he is not going to be especially pleased to make the acquaintance. “I think (Henrik) Lundqvist is the best…

THE vast majority of the fans who watched Harry Howell’s No. 3 and Andy Bathgate’s No. 9 raised to the Madison Square Garden roof last night were not old enough to have cheered either, but they made up for lost time. “It can’t get any better…

Turns out the shot that revolutionized goaltending, sending a broken-nosed Jacques Plante into the nets on Nov. 1, 1959, at Madison Square Garden with the first mask, was not an accident. “Jacques gave me a poke check when I went behind the net…

IT’S not hard to take the temperature of a hockey team than has scored 16 goals in its past 10 games, even with the thermometers frozen in locked jaws. “At some point we need somebody to grab it, take the puck and calm it down,” Wade Redden said…

The Rangers watched with rapt attention from their bench as Adam Graves, his No. 9 soon headed to the rafters, repeatedly expressed the joy of playing in the World’s Most Reciprocal Arena. “You ask Nigel Dawes or Brandon Dubinsky, they will tell…

After Rangers Adams Graves won with, current Rangers he counsels, and the tiniest fraction of persons whose lives he has touched had been introduced on his night, he asked one question. “As I look up in the rafters at the names and numbers, it is…