Rangers Boot Camp will open this morning without Corporal Brandon Dubinsky. Or is that, Buck(s) Private?
Negotiations between the Blueshirts and their unsigned Group II free agent continued yesterday, but did not reach fruition though general manager Glen Sather is believed to have offered the center a one-year deal that represented an increase over the $635,000 he earned last year. The Rangers previously had been standing on their $522,500 qualifying offer.
Dubinsky will not be permitted to attend camp until he has signed. He will thus miss this morning’s opening 7 a.m. meeting and the arduous conditioning exercises and tests that the remainder of the 51-player training camp roster will undertake under the supervision of Drill Instructor John Tortorella.
“I’m not looking to hold a grudge,” Tortorella said yesterday when asked of the potential impact of Dubinsky’s absence. “It needs to play out.”
Dubinsky, who was to get the first shot at the first-line center position, wanted to attend camp without a contract, but that was not a realistic prospect. The 23-year-old, who could still receive an offer sheet from a competing club, will become the first Ranger to miss a day of camp because of a contract dispute since Mark Messier held out while renegotiating in 1994.
The players who do report this morning will face an opening two days of camp unlike anything they’ve ever before experienced — well, everyone other than Vinny Prospal, who went through four camps with Tortorella in Tampa Bay. The Rangers will get onto the ice today and tomorrow, but they won’t touch a puck until Monday.
“I don’t want my training camp to take on a life of its own, but the front end of this camp is going to be laden with tough conditioning,” said Tortorella, with tales of his past camps preceding him. “The [physical] testing is difficult, but [the results] give a really good gauge of what the players did over the summer.
“I told the guys both verbally and by a letter that this will let us know where they want to be with the team, where they sit. It gives us a good indication.”
The Rangers will go through six sets of three-lap sprints of 450 feet on the ice this morning. They will undertake a three-mile run tonight. Tomorrow they will go through strength tests and aerobic skating. On Monday, they get to scrimmage for an hour. Oh, and the first exhibition game is Tuesday at the Garden against the Bruins, a night before the Blueshirts cross the Hudson to play the Devils.
“I’d like to see a different kind of culture here — that doesn’t happen overnight,” said Tortorella, who coached last season’s final 21 games after replacing Tom Renney on Feb. 23. “The type of mindset that we’re trying to get to is going to take some time.
“Do they give in or do they make it? We’re trying to become a team that doesn’t give in and fights through it. Somewhere along the line there became this [notion] that you’re not allowed to push athletes. My job is to try and push them and get them to another level in all aspects.”