Player Check-Up: Brandon Dubinsky

To kick of the new feature post "Player Check-Up" on the blog, we will take a brief look at the performance of Brandon Dubinsky through the first three regular season games. As a reminder, in this specific series, the Rangers Tribune will check up on the status of any specific Ranger player. This will include how they have been contributing to the team, whether or not they are meeting expectations, and an overall grade.

After a week-long holdout during training camp, center Brandon Dubinsky was signed by the Rangers for two years/$3.7 million. So far, General Manager Glen Sather has not had a reason to regret this move, as Brandon has developed great chemistry with star winger Marian Gaborik. Heading into the season, most fans were not attracted to the idea of Dubinsky centering the team's first line, and wanted Sather to go out and acquire a veteran to play with Gabs. Thankfully, Sather stayed the course, and acquired Dubi at a cheap price for the time being.

During the pre-season, head coach John Tortorella united Dubinsky and Gaborik on a line for the first time, and they instantly clicked. Ever since, we have yet to see the two be split up, just have seen a variety of personnel play on the vacant left wing. For now, Vinny Prospal has been assigned that spot, and I like the way he has played with Brandon and Marian. Dubinsky and Gaborik are currently tied for the team lead in points, both with two goals and two assists in three games played.

Two major aspects of Dubi's game that I have noticed change in are his speed and his mentality. Starting with speed, Brandon obviously worked on his quickness in the off-season, because he now has a lot more jump in his game, and is able to blow by defenders much more easily than in prior seasons. One of the deadliest weapons in the sport of hockey is speed, and Dubinsky now possesses it, so he should use it to his advantage, especially on the rush.

The other change that the 2004 draft pick has made is his overall mentality. Ever since entering the league, Dubinsky has always been a player in which focuses on making the passing play, before thinking about taking the shot. John Tortorella picked up on this quite quickly once joining the team, and pointed it out to Brandon. As a result, Dubinsky rented ice often in the summer, and solely focused on his shooting. We saw the practice pay-off against the Ottawa Senators on Saturday Night, when Dubi roofed a shot passed Pascal Leclaire for his first goal of the season.

In the long-run, the youngster's new mentality of taking the shot when it is available will improve his statistics dramatically. There were a countless number of times that come to memory of Dubinsky passing up a scoring chance last season, and this is a prime reason as to why he went 15-20 games without a goal at times.

Now I am aware that it is still early, and that Dubinsky got off to a similar start last season, so I will not make a big fuss just yet. However, I do feel that the changes in linemantes and style of play will work to Dubinsky's advantage, and that we will finally see this kid reach the 20 goal plateau. Being able to play with Gaborik alone will blow up Dubi's stats, but the key here is consistency, something that has not been present in his game in recent years.

All in all, my overall grade for Brandon is an "A", but that is based on only three games played, which is not much. Hence the reason why this post is quite short, because it is being done so early in the season. Expect Player Check Up's to be much lengthier in the future, as I will have more to talk build on.

Dubi after Saturday's win:

"Certainly we have opportunities and we have to continue to capitalize on those chances. I thought we did good tonight. We just have to continue to do it. With our offense, the attack we have, we are going to create those chances. We have to score some goals."

(Image courtesy of AP Photo)