Back in early October, I fielded predictions for how many points each of the Rangers' forwards would accumulate over the season. Those predictions can be found here. Below are the results, posted, to the best of my ability from Excel. If anyone notices an error, please let me know.

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I'm sure many people here are familiar with ESPN's 30 for 30 film series.  Tonight ESPN aired its most recent installment, The Dotted Line, about the notorious sports representation industry.  Any Giants fans that were planning on skipping this one should reconsider.  The documentary features current Giant, and in all likelyhood future first-ballot Hall of Famer, Jacquian Williams.

The documentary jumps around a lot and features a lot, from issue to issue and sport to sport, but Jacquian is featured somewhat predominantly in both the beginning and the end.  We first see Williams being recruited, successfully, by a young agent.  Later we see Jacquian at home on draft day(s), while his agent is elsewhere, fretting as team after team passes on his client (dummies).

It's nothing groundbreaking, and the documentary actually sort of paints Jacquian as a bad guy in the end, but I still recommend Giants fans give it a watch.  After all, we can't get enough of Jacquian Williams right now.  The film re-airs tomorrow on ESPN2 at 11PM EST.

The rules are quite simple: predict how many total points each player listed will record in the 2011-2012 season.  At the end of the season we'll compare the actual results to everyone predictions and determine who was most accurate, and consequently whom the most prophetic/knowledgeable/sexy Banterite is.  I figured each participant's score would be the total absolute differences between prediction and result.  So if someone was off by 10 points on 10 players, his score would be 100.  The person with the lowest score wins.  And absolute difference means that it doesn't matter if your prediction is high or low.  If a player records 50 points, predictions of 55 and 45 points hold equal weight.  No Price is Right bullshit.

I was debating whether or not to include the entire roster, but decided to include only the projected top twelve forwards.  These forwards are listed below, along with their point total from last season.

Anisimov: 44 pts

Boyle: 35

Callahan: 48

Dubinsky: 54

Fedotenko: 25

Gaborik: 48

Prust: 29

Richards: 77*

Rupp: 17*

Stepan: 45

Wolski: 35*

Zuccarello: 23

* point total includes points recorded with another team

This list is final, so call-ups be damned, and if you have Player A (or more likely, Player Z) scoring 50 points and he gets sent to Hartford in week 2, sucks for you.  Same can be said if Player B (or Player G) blows out his groin and winds up on the LTIR.

For the sake of making my life easier, please post your predictions in alphabetical order.  I'll list the players once again so it will be easy to copy and paste.  Have at it.  And get your picks in before puck drop on Friday, or I'm gonna be a total dick and DQ you.

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We are in the dog days of summer, which means no ice, which means no hockey, which means no joy in life.  To help remedy this woeful period, I went youtubing for highlights from this past season.  Three games instantly came to mind.

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According to the AHL's website Corey Locke has been sent down to Hartford and replaced with Dale Weise.  I like the move and am excited to see what Weise can do.  He isn't nearly the offensive machine in Hartford that Locke was, but he still managed to be the team's second leading scorer and he has multiple dimensions to his game which makes a better fit for a 4th line role in the NHL.

He can be had for a top 42 pick, should the Giants make a move?

That was a joke.  The real question is, are you hoping he gets moved?  I know a lot of Eagle fans are ready for the McNabb Era to end, and I generally want the opposite of what Eagle fans want, but in this instance we are in agreement.  I think this is a case of "the grass is always greener."  Then again, maybe I only think that because McNabb has consistently bested the Giants.  I never see much of McNabb when he's playing any other team, and I certainly have no valid assessment of Kolb.  Still, McNabb being traded would brighten my day.

Hockey'sFuture released an updated list of the Rangers Top 20 Prospects.  Artem Anisimov has "graduated", otherwise all our top prospects remain.  Ryan McDonagh has been down graded, while players like MDZ, Kreider, and Chad Johnson experienced upgrades.  All in all, it remains a very good farm system, and that's not even considering our young big leaguers.  Also, this list serves as further evidence that Sather in fact did not make a big trade at the dealine.  Who'd of thunk it.

Well Simms-McConkey is gone, probably whacked by Tony Sparano, which is good news for anyone on the periphery of the playoff race.  In all seriousness, I think he may have accidentally triggered some SBN ban.  The same thing happened to jman a couple of weeks ago.  Hopefully Simms will be reinstated soon, but just to be safe I thought I'd get the Pick'em Pool going for this week.  Thursday is fast approaching, so if Simms isn't able to work through the red tape by then, post your picks here.  The first pick is the Thursday Night game, due before kickoff.

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I was looking at the Rangers' salary cap chart and, big surprise here, they have a lot of money tied up for a long time.  It will be three years before any of the Rangers' major salaries (those over $3 mill) come of the books.  Before that time the following Rangers will reach some form of FA:

Higgins

Callahan

Dubinsky (assuming we can retain his services for this year)

Anisimov

Lisin

Staal

Girardi

Gilroy

Sanguinetti

I'm no expert on how much of a raise these guys will expect to receive, but with virtually no cap space and only small contracts set to expire in the next few years, how can the Rangers possibly expect to retain more than a couple of these guys?

I know some fans are wondering if Redden can have some sort of resurrection with Tortorella's system fully implemented, but even if he does, wouldn't it serve the greater good to buyout or bury his contract so that the Rangers could keep this young core of players together?  I'm sure I'm not seeing all the angles, but unless Montreal is willing to take on more of our bloated contracts, is there any other alternative to cutting our losses with Redden?

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I've been very distraught over the last couple days, and feeling very pessimistic about the Rangers chances to take the next step forward.  I won't go into the overwhelming evidence, but I think most people agree with me when I place the blame on GM Glen Sather.  The hardest part of being a fan is having to sit around while some geezer takes your team down from the inside.  So I've decided to be proactive and brainstorm ways in which we can help facilitate the firing of Glen Sather.  Below are my two ideas, please feel free to add your own.

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I don't know when it will happen, but Coughlin will inevitably retire, as all professionals do.  He is 62 (I thought he was at least in his late 60's, but he's not) and has been coaching for decades (four of them).  It might be another decade but let us assume for the sake of this post that he calls it a career within the next couple years.  Who would you like to see as the next Giants coach?

I happen to think the Giants should look outside of the orginization since I'm not a fan Gilbride and Sheridan is a brand new coordinator.  I am not too familiar with any of the other Giants coaches.

If you can't name specific canidates, what kind of coach would you want?  Another  Parcells disciple or something new?