"The Rangers cast their lot with their young defense corps and shored up their injury-depleted cast of forwards Monday by trading the veteran defenseman Michal Rozsival to Phoenix for left wing Wojtek Wolski.

Wolski, 24, still awaiting his breakout season, is expected to be in uniform for the Rangers' game Tuesday against Montreal at Madison Square Garden. He will be skating in a roster slot vacated by Alexander Frolov, who sustained a season-ending knee injury in Saturday's 2-1 victory at St. Louis. Frolov was the team's fourth forward to be sidelined with a major injury.

"We have a lot of good defensemen progressing the way we want them," Glen Sather, the Rangers' general manager, said in a conference call. "And we thought we could improve ourselves at forward, especially after we lost a pretty good winger in St. Louis the other night.""