A few thoughts while we wish the Rangers, Penguins, Senators and Lightning a safe trip home to North America:

New team, same Redden – It seems a pretty safe bet new defenseman Wade Redden will get a positive reception when he plays in his first regular-season game at Madison Square Garden, following his contributions to a New York Rangers sweep of their Bridgestone NHL Premiere Prague series.

Redden tied Sunday’s game against the Tampa Bay Lightning with a power-play goal early in the second period, and he had the secondary assist on Scott Gomez’s game-winner midway through the second as the Rangers skated away with their second straight 2-1 victory and the maximum four points available to them on the weekend.

Over the course of 11 seasons and 840 games for Ottawa, Redden compiled 412 points and an eye-opening plus-160 rating. The Rangers signed him during the summer as much for his intangibles as what you can read off his stat line.

“Wade is a very calculated player, he’s a very poised player,” Rangers coach Tom Renney said. “He’s got a lot of patience. He can process things quickly and yet make it look almost too calm. He did it tonight.”

Redden, who was actually drafted by the New York Islanders with the No. 2 pick in 1995 before getting shipped to the Senators, is excited to have the opportunity to play in the Big Apple and happy to start off the second part of his career in strong fashion.

“It feels good to chip in the goal,” Redden said. “It’s going to be my intention to keep building throughout the season.”

SEASON PREVIEW

NHL This Week

Mike G. Morreale - NHL.com Staff Writer
Get your appointment book out. NHL.com has the highlights of what’s on the schedule this week as the regular season starts in North America. READ MORE ›

 

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Work to be done – After an offseason that featured the hiring of Barry Melrose as coach, the drafting of Steven Stamkos with the No. 1 pick and an infusion of both young and veteran talent, the Lightning generated quite a bit of excitement heading into the regular season.

But after two games, Melrose can see his new team has a long way to go if it wants to improve upon its last-place finish of a season ago – and the new bench boss isn’t pulling any punches about that fact.

“We don’t compete,” he said of the Lightning, who tied Los Angeles with an NHL-low 71 points last season. “We’re too easy to play against. Until that changes, we’re going to have trouble. We have a lot of skill on our team, but skill means nothing if you don't work hard.”

Although the Lightning were only outscored 4-2 in the two-game series in Prague, they were outshot by a 2-to-1 margin, 80-40. Melrose gave credit to Stamkos, who played limited minutes, and the new checking line featuring holdover Chris Gratton and a pair of free who recently lifted the Stanley Cup for Pittsburgh in Gary Roberts and Adam Hall. Otherwise, he was none too pleased with his charges.

“The best line tonight was again Gratton’s line,” Melrose said. “My biggest problem was I can’t play Gratton's line every shift. It’s probably the lowest paid line we’ve got on the ice, but by far the best line in the last two games.

“I hope our guys are embarrassed. We’ve just got to get our great players playing as hard as our lesser players and we'll be fine.”

A positive experience – While the Rangers were much happier with the end results, both teams agreed that getting to play twice before a packed house at the O2 Arena in Prague was something special.

“The audience? Outstanding,” Rangers coach Tom Renney said. His players, as they traditionally do after home games at the Garden, raised their sticks in appreciation to the crowd after the game, “because they’re great fans. It’s a great hockey city, it’s a great hockey country, and we want to acknowledge the fact that we very much appreciate the support for both teams.”

Tampa Bay forward Vaclav Prospal, a native of the Czech Republic, expressed disappointment at the Lightning’s consecutive defeats and his own inability to break onto the scoresheet, but nevertheless said, “It was an unbelievable experience for me to play here.”

The League first began the regular season outside of North America with games in Japan in 1997, 1998 and 2000, then had Anaheim and Los Angeles square off twice in London last season. After this season’s Premiere series in Prague and Stockholm, it seems inevitable Europe will play host to more games in the future.

“I think that any NHL team would love to come over,” Melrose said. “I’m sure that the NHL will continue to do it every year. We’ve got so many European players, the fans over here deserve to see their homeboys play.”

Three out of four ain’t bad – To a man, the Ottawa Senators felt like they should have come away with two points Saturday in the first game of their Bridgestone NHL Premiere Stockholm series against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The 4-3 overtime loss, despite the point that came with it, was a difficult one to swallow.

Led by Dany Heatley, they took the ice again on Sunday and made sure the plane ride home would be a pleasant one by claiming a 3-1 win to split the two games and leave Sweden with three of a possible four points. Heatley’s power-play goal in the second period opened the scoring and he netted what held up as the game-winner in the third, with Ottawa enjoying another man-advantage.

“As a group it was a big weekend for us,” Heatley said. “We were hungry for these two games. Even if we only got one point last night we felt we worked hard. We played well and could easily have won that game. We tried really to come on and battle as a group, and we did a good job at that.”

Senators captain Daniel Alfredsson, who hails from Sweden, assisted on both goals by Heatley. On the first, he started the play with a pass from the left circle to Jason Spezza at the side of the goal. Heatley took a pass across the goalmouth from Spezza and put the puck between the legs of Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury.

The second goal was pure power from Heatley, as he teed up an Alfredsson pass for a one-timer that blew past Fleury before he could react. Heatley has now scored goals in 14 straight games against Pittsburgh.

Ottawa’s newest masked man – Once viewed as the future No. 1 goalie in Vancouver, it’s been a whirlwind journey for Alex Auld over the past two seasons. He played in 67 games for the Canucks in 2005-06, winning 33, but was dealt to Florida during the ensuing offseason in the trade for Roberto Luongo.

Since then, Auld has also spent time tending the net for Boston and Phoenix, and Sunday he made his regular-season debut for the Senators, who brought him in to back up Martin Gerber after cutting ties with Ray Emery.

After Gerber allowed a couple soft goals Saturday – including Tyler Kennedy’s second of the game, in overtime – new Ottawa coach Craig Hartsburg turned to Auld, who responded with 59 minutes and 59 seconds of shutout hockey. Pittsburgh rookie defenseman Alex Goligoski’s first NHL goal barely beat the final horn, but it didn’t dampen the overall effectiveness of Auld’s debut for his new team.

“I’ve just been waiting and ready to go,” Auld said. “I find every game you play, you’ve got a little bit of nerves and that is a good thing.”

Gerber has split time in the past with Jean-Sebastien Giguere in Anaheim, Cam Ward in Carolina and Emery in Ottawa, and while he was perceived to be the No. 1 heading into the season, the better Auld plays the more he might end up playing.

“Alex has a good camp and back-to-back (games), it makes sense for us,” Ottawa coach Craig Hartsburg said. “It’s best for both (goalies) and it’s best for the team.”