Rangers' Staal showing great improvement

Marc Staal is 6-4, 210 pounds and still growing. Not necessarily physically, but offensively.

In 2007-08, his rookie season with the Rangers, the defenseman from Thunder Bay, Ontario, scored two goals. In 2008-09, three. This year, the 23-year-old has eight, including three in the last three games.

The Rangers' first-round pick - 12th overall - in the 2005 entry draft has gained accolades for his defense and physical play in the defensive zone. Along with Dan Girardi, Staal has almost always been assigned to try to shut down the opponent's top line. That is one measure of success, but he also has a career- high 19 assists this season and leads the club in average ice time at 23 minutes per game.

After his ice-length rush and wrist shot that flew past Panthers goaltender Scott Clemmensen's glove to pull the Rangers into a 1-1 tie 18 seconds into the third period Saturday night, his teammates gave Staal, who is far from a media hound, some ribbing.

"We're limiting his interviews. Only two more questions," Anders Eriksson said.

Staal, who has admitted that missing the net with shots earlier in the season was a flaw that he needed to correct, downplayed his scoring burst as simply a matter of better accuracy. "I don't know, I think that's really all there is to it," he said after Saturday's 4-1 win.

But other players will readily speak about him.

"Watching some of the things he does so well as such a big guy . . . he makes moves in tight as if he's my size," Chris Drury said. "And certainly, the offensive boost he's given us is huge. Even when [he and the other defensemen] are not scoring, but they jump in the play to help us create opportunities and offense, and certainly when they're putting it in the net, it's been a boost for the entire lineup.''

The timing cannot be better for Staal, a restricted free agent who surely will be offered a lucrative long-term deal with the Rangers after the season. He is earning $765,000 this season, the final one of his three-year entry-level contract.

Notes & quotes: The Flyers beat the Red Wings, 4-3, Sunday and tied the Bruins for seventh place with 84 points, two more than the ninth-place Rangers. The Rangers have a game in hand on Philadelphia and will play the Flyers on Friday and Sunday to end the season . . . RW Dale Weise, who has 28 goals and 21 assists in 73 games for the Hartford Wolf Pack, was called up Sunday and center Corey Locke, who played sparingly in the last three games for the Rangers, was returned to the AHL. The summoning of Weise, 21, who has a goal in each of his last four games, likely means that Drury, who had been shifted to wing, will return to center.