Rangers fans – thank you for submitting your questions today to Hartford Wolf Pack General Manager Jim Schoenfeld in the latest Q&A on newyorkrangers.com. Schoenfeld is currently in his second season as Wolf Pack General Manager after serving the 2002-03 season as an Assistant Coach with the New York Rangers. Schoenfeld joined the Rangers organization on June 12, 2000 after serving as lead analyst for ESPN's National Hockey Night for three seasons. Under Schoenfeld's guidance, the Wolf Pack continue to be one of the premiere franchises in the American Hockey League. After falling in the Eastern Conference Finals a year ago, the Pack have set their sights on the 2005 AHL Playoffs.

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Q: With only a few games left in the regular season before the playoffs, who/what would you rate as some of the bright spots as you look back on the season so far?
– Heath N., Stamford, CT
JS: The brightest spot on our team would have to be our goaltenders – Jason LaBarbera and Steve Valiquette. They have been excellent all season long. Going into last nights game they were one and two in the league in goals against average, , so they have been our most consistent performers and certainly have been a highlight for our club. Ryan Hollweg has made a good impression for his first season in the American Hockey League. He has already built a reputation as being one of the hardest body checkers in the AHL. He has the intelligence to predict a play, he has the skating ability to get there and he has the courage not to be denied. Ryan is a pretty formidable opponent in a physical battle and he has some pretty good hands to go along with it, so we have some pretty good expectations for Ryan moving along in his career, which I think eventually will become an NHL career. .

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Q: Jim - Congratulations on making the playoffs! The Wolf Pack as a team has led the league in goals against, and your two goalies are 1 and 2 in GAA. How difficult is it for you to choose which goalie to play, and what goes through your mind in making that decision? Good luck in the playoffs!
- Bill Stoutenburgh, Dallas, TX

JS: We let our coaches – Ryan McGill and Nick Fotiu – make that decision. It’s a better problem to have than having two mediocre goaltenders and trying to guess which one is going to play well. It’s been our experience this year that it doesn’t matter which guy we put in. Both have performed extremely well. As far as who to play come playoff time, you might just look at recent history and see how that goaltender has matched up against the other team. If one of them has a favorable match-up, then he may get the nod. But I don’t think our coaching staff would think twice about playing either guy against any given team in the playoffs.

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Q: Jim - First off I always loved your style of play and remember your great fight with Cashman off the ice and with Nicky in the 1978 playoffs. I'm very impressed with your defensive system and development program and how Ryan and Nicky are holding the boys accountable and playing the kids. We need that on Broadway and I'm hopeful that Tom can get a bunch of hungry kids together who stick together and play for each other. My only concern is the lack of finishers in Hartford and know that playing great defense is the only way to win today. Keep up the great job and continued good luck!
- Jack Smith, Sayreville, NJ

Thanks Jack. What Ryan and Nick have tried to do is make it unpredictable for our opponents in the defensive game and hopefully turn that into some creativity in the offensive game. I think it has worked well. We are going to have a 100-point season, but there have been times when we have shown inconsistencies. But that is part of the growing process with these kids. If they were all consistent players, they would be in the NHL. We also think that our best defense comes from attacking. If the other team plays most of the game in their end, they are not going to mount much of an offense – which in my opinion is pretty good defensive hockey. Where I would like to see more improvement into the playoffs is with our ability to create scoring opportunities on the rush. This means making good passing decisions and creating good playmaking opportunities for ourselves.

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Q: First of all, congratulations on a great job you've been doing in Hartford! We fans have all heard terrific things concerning guys like Balej, Lundmark, Tyutin, etc. But I'd like to know more about some of the unheralded players such as Alexandre Giroux and Craig Weller. What are the real possibilities of them reaching the Rangers? Thanks for taking my question!
– Paul, Flushing, NY

JS: I think (Alexandre) Giroux is a good place to start. He has 30 goals and we still have three games left in the regular season. He has certainly come a long way in that he has realized you have to be a strong performer in every facet of the game to score goals. You can’t play a game where you are not defensively reliable. You can’t play a game if you’re not going to finish your checks and still expect to get the same number of scoring chances. Yet I think for him to be a career NHLer, that will have to be his biggest area of growth.

Craig Weller is very valuable to us because we’ve used him a lot as a right winger and also as a defenseman. He has played both positions very well, but I think his future in the NHL will be as a winger not a defenseman. He has also developed a very hard, clean body check and is a very effective forchecker for that.

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Q: With the NHL out of commission for the 2004-2005 season, has it brought more life to the Hartford Wolf Pack and the rest of the AHL?
- Joseph Barbieri, Staten Island, NY

JS: Our level of skill in the American Hockey League was greatly increased this year because the NHL-caliber players stayed here all year instead of getting called up either for the entire season or for quick stints. Most of the players were here from the get-go and they stayed here. Our level of skill in Hartford was definitely elevated as well as the overall speed of the game.

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Q: I know in the National Hockey League, the role of a General Manager entails trading players, signing players to contracts, etc. I would like to know what responsibilities a GM has at the minor league level? Thanks.
– Scott, Mt. Sinai, NY

JS: The responsibiliites of an AHL manager vary with each club. Some are immediately involved with the marketing and finance of the team, while some are more involved with the hockey operations. Some do a combination of both. With my situation here, my attention is primarily put on the development of the players and coaches. I have input in the other facets of the job but that secondary to the importance of the primary goal of why we are here … to develop players for the big club.

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Q: With the playoffs around the corner and with your team having a successful regular season, what are your thoughts for the club going into the post-season?
– Dylan, Rockville Centre, NY

JS: We had a stinker the other night against Manchester but like I said earlier, we’re having a 100-point plus season. This team has put things together for long stretches of the year and I look for us to do that in the post-season. A couple of critical things will have to happen for our team to do well.

First, we need our goaltending to be as good as it has been all year. We expect that and we really don’t see a drop-off in Jason or in Steve. We think that they have been excellent all year and we expect them to play like that through the spring.

The second factor is health. It is critical for teams in the playoffs to advance. We need to make sure the core group of players can maintain their health, especially at this level. We need to stay away from injury and illness, and right now we have a couple of important guys on the shelf. We’ve lost Weller and Wiseman. These are very important players on the team so you have to find a way, in their absence, to get the job done. But it’s better to get them back into the lineup, which we are hoping will be in a week or so.

The third thing is you need someone to get a hot stick, and it doesn’t have to be the same player throughout the playoffs. It seems in each series when a team is winning and advancing, one player gets a hot stick and instead of the puck hitting the post and bouncing out it bounces in. It just seems to have the puck falling around the net and ‘bang, bang’ he scores the overtime winning goal. We just don’t know who that is going to be. Last year (Jozef) Balej was our best producer. He had four game-winners, two of them in overtime, so we don’t know who it will be this year. If you look historically, there is usually a guy who gets hot throughout the playoffs or at least in a series. We hope to have a few of those players step up and produce this spring