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Where to start? The brilliance of Henrik Lundqvist? The brilliance of Sean Aver? The joy of having a working power play? Uncle Daddy being shaky? There were so many subplots coming into this game that I was almost scared it would be over before it started. The Rangers have been playing pretty well lately, but haven’t been getting the results they wanted, and tonight they had to play against the Atlantic division leading Devils, who came into the game having just acquired one of the best players in the game, Ilya Kovalchuk.

I expected it to be an interesting game, but I didn’t expect it to be so thoroughly enjoyable to watch. Generally Rangers-Devils games have really long boring stretches, but this one was pretty damn good from the drop of the puck. The Devils came out strong and basically forced Henrik Lundqvist to be the star attraction from moment one.

It certainly looked to me that the Devils had a set game plan. Shoot glove side. And really, you can’t blame them, if there is one area Henrik seems to be beatable, it’s high glove side. But today the Rangers goalie was flashing some leather, stopping both high, and low shots glove side. Henrik was tracking the puck better than he has been of late, and really stood head and shoulders above the rest of the players on the ice. In particular when compared to his counterpart, Uncle Daddy. Uncle Daddy did not look sharp, giving up a soft goal by Callahan, and giving Chris Drury a huge amount of net to shoot at on his goal. The Devils definitely had the bulk of the better play in this game, but this was not a game where Henrik Lundqvist stole 2 points for the Rangers. He was the #1 story, sure, but the Rangers played pretty damn well in front of their superstar goaltender, especially given the expected surge of energy the Devils would inevitably get by making such a lopsided trade for such a great player.

Speaking of Kovalchuk, he really did have a great game up until the final 2 minutes. He was outstanding on the rush, got quite a few quality scoring chances, and probably would have had a goal or 2 if Henrik wasn’t on top of his game. However at the end of the game Kovalchuk took a retarded penalty when falling for Sean Averys antics. That is what Avery is out there to do, to piss of Kovalchuk, and it worked. Kovalchuk was selfish and very stupid there, especially when you consider the Devils would end up getting a power play a short while afterwards. Think they could have used Kovalchuk for that PP with the game being close and them having 6 men on the ice? Had Avery not goaded Kovalchuk there, it wouldn’t surprise me if the Devils got 1 in the final minute to make this one close. As it stands, the Rangers picked up 2 crucial points, as their playoff positioning has become perilous, and these points have become basically must haves from here on out.

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This one needs to be short, almost 5 am here, and I need to wake up early, yikes. Anyway, I felt the Rangers played a pretty decent game when going toe to toe with inarguably the hottest team in the NHL, and arguably the best team in the NHL. They almost pulled out a win, and probably would have won if not for taking 9, count em, 9 penalties, at least 3 of which were unnecessary. The Caps absolutely blitzed us on the main advantage, as we blitzed them, and they beat us. I can’t be too unhappy because I felt like we played a fairly good game, however when you hear about the Devils getting my boy Kovalchuk, this loss feels especially painful. It’s not that we are super far out of the playoffs, the problem right now is games in hand. Every team we are fighting against has at least 1 game in hand, and most of them have 3. If those teams all pick up just 1 point per game in hand (as most of them tend to do, produce at a PPG rate or better), the Rangers would be 2 points ahead of the 13th place (in the East) Islanders, and would have a top 6 pick in the draft. That’s not good folks, not good at all, especially with the insanely difficult schedule we have coming up. That’s all for now, I need to hit the sack.

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Considering that Jokinen had just played the night before for a different sweater in a different system with a different coach, I thought he played well. Considering the Rangers, one of the coldest teams in the NHL went into Los Angeles against one of the hottest teams in the league, and were 2 goal posts away from coming up with a win, you can’t feel all that upset about the game. Really this game came down to 1 boneheaded move by the coach which cost the team 2 points.

On the Rangers power play in the second period, Torts decided to use 5 forwards on at the same time. I don’t know about you but I was absolutely shocked and disgusted at that move. I’m sorry, in a 0-0 road game you should never, ever do something retarded like that. Maybe if the game was at home, and you felt confident about your power play you can give it a shot. But with one of the leagues worst power plays, that has been absolutely putrid the past several weeks, you can not make that move. It was foolish of Torts to do so, and really marred what was a pretty good game for the Rangers.

Sure, Jokinen could have played that better, but the onus was on the coach to make the smart play and put Gilroy or Rozsival on at the other point. That was a boneheaded move.

Speaking of Rozsival, I must admit, that might have been the best game he has played in his entire career. If you watched it you saw a downright dominating performance by the beleaguered czech defenseman. Paired with Staal the 2 were absolutely dynamic in their own zone. They didn’t give up much, and when they did Henrik was there to bail them out. On the flip side of things, I thought Matt Gilroy has looked pretty poor for quite a while now. Not only is he providing absolutely NOTHING offensively, but he is so weak on the boards, and in 1 on 1 battles that you can’t see how he will ever be an effective defenseman at this level. Honestly, if the Thrashers could be convinced to let Kovalchuk go for a package with Gilroy in it, I would do it in a heartbeat.

Expect the next game to be somewhat brutal. Rangers are coming home, where they have been terrible, against the, now winners of 11 games in a row, Washington Capitals. Yikes, this one has all the makings of a massacre. Boy would I love to be proven wrong.

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While all Tortorella wanted to talk about in the post game was about how well Ocho Cinco played…and he definitely played great, to me this entire night was about Marian Gaborik. Guy played an unreal game, scored 3 goals, probably could have scored another 1 or 2, and was all over the ice in all situations playing hard. He was absolutely dominating out there. Makes you wonder how the guy would play with a better center…say a guy like, oh, I don’t know, Olli Jokinen?

I know people are kind of ambivalent about this trade, but I for one am absolutely ecstatic if it goes through. Not only do we rid ourselves of a horrendous contract in Kotalik, but we also rid ourselves of one of our least productive players in Chris Higgins. I know Higgins is a feel good story, a local kid with local ties, but let’s face it. He hasn’t even played as well as Freddy Sjostrom did in that position last year. Higgins is a 4th line penalty killing checker for this Ranger team. It wouldn’t surprise me if he goes to Calgary and starts lighting the lamp playing with Iginla, I mean hell, even Nigel Dawes was lighting the lamp playing with Iginla, but he has almost no value to the Rangers as it stands, and you can bet your ass the Rangers were going to let him walk after this season.

In Jokinen, if the Rangers do get him, they get a former star player who has struggled mightily this year, and is one of those “change of scenery” type players. Except in this instance, you are only on the hook for about 26 more games, and then we are free to let him walk, which I bet you we will unless he is willing to sign at a cheap rate for 1 year, or if he has an absolute renaissance back here. People forget that Jokinen has scored at least 29 goals in just about half of his NHL seasons, and he is still on pace to score about 50 points which is a hair under what Prospal is giving us. To me, a top line of Prospal - Jokinen - Gaborik is just what the doctor ordered. Let’s see how things play out. It’s almost 6 am now, and I just finished watching the game (had my own game to play tonight, and a nice long drive back to my house, hence the delay), so I’m going to go to bed, hopefully when I wake up in the morning, this trade will be finalized. It’s a no brainer for us Ranger fans, and an absolute steal for us, even if Higgins has a comeback season, and if Kotalik gets his act together.

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Tonights Rangers post game wrap is brought to you by…

Tired of Mismanagement, Bad Contracts, being mired in Mediocrity and a lack of results? Come down to Madison Square Garden before the Rangers– Sabres game, join the rally, and let Mr. Jim Dolan know that you want Glen Sather FIRED immediately!!!!!!

Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Time: 5:00pm - 6:00pm
Location: The Steps Outside Madison Square Garden
Street: 1 Penn Plaza
City/Town: New York, NY

After hearing the post game comments given by coach Tortorella, and alternate captain Ryan Callahan, you would think that this 5-1 drubbing the Rangers took today was a hotly contested affair where just a bounce or 2 was the difference in the game. You would think so, but you would be wrong. This was not one of those games, this was nothing short of a complete no-show for the Rangers for about 75% of this game. It wasn’t that they played badly. They just didn’t show up, they didn’t give a flying frak whether or not they won this game. When they finally decided to show some heart, they did so when it was far too little, and far too late. They squeezed their sticks like a team that just knows they can’t score goals, and their goalie was absolutely putrid between the pipes. This is a team that isn’t slumping, this is a team that is freefalling with no end in sight. A 2 game winning streak won’t fix things, the Rangers need to go on a huge run soon, or this season is toast. As it stands right now the Rangers are slated to finish at roughly 83 or 84 points. With that kind of a finish, the Rangers will probably have a top 10 draft pick, possibly in the 5-10 range. The Rangers are standing on a precipice right now. I know that seems kind of extreme considering they are 1 point from being in 6th place, but it’s not really the case. Here’s the problem… The Rangers schedule is pretty damn hard from here on out.

The Rangers have 28 games remaining.
They play 2 games against the “bottom feeders” with 2 against Toronto.
They play teams that are expected to finish with 100 points or higher (Washington, NJ, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, SJ, Chicago, Colorado, Vancouver, Phoenix) 11 times.
The remaining 15 games are:
Los Angeles, Nashville, Tampa Bay, Ottawa, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Montreal, St. Louis, Boston, Islanders, and Florida.

So, here is the math portion of this evening. What I want to do is take the Rangers current record against the remaining teams, and use that to project how many points we should have when finishing the season. For teams where we have no track record, I will assume 1 point won simply because that is what kind of a team we are as it stands now, 1 point per game. Here is the table:

So what does my math tell me? My math tells me that based on our schedule difficulty our team will more than likely finish in the bottom 4 in the East. Meaning instead of making the playoffs, this team will likely finish with the 6th overall pick in the NHL draft, and probably within a point or 2 of actually have a chance at the #1 overall pick (thanks to the lottery). That is both horrifying, and slightly exciting. Why? Because of the Rangers go on full blown rebuild mode, they could beat the odds, and likely finish with a top 5 pick AND gather some assets, whereas if they instead try to “go for it” they may finish with a top 5 pick, and no assets, maybe not even said pick.

The next 5-10 games will be huge for this team. If they can win say 16 out of the next 20 points, then they are right back into it, and all this math was a waste of time, however if they don’t go beyond the point per game pace they are at now, this team will more than likely be at a crossroads. To rebuild, or to go for it.

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I think the Rangers should just stop going to Montreal. Whenever that game comes up on the schedule we should just waive the white flag, throw in the towel, etc, because we can’t do jack shit in this building. It’s gone on for years now. Take a 5 goal lead into the 3rd, lose the game. Go up by a few goal, they storm back to win it in OT. Tonights game was nothing short of a pathetic effort by the defense of this team. Yes, we were again shut out for something like the 40th time in the last 42 games…but to me it was the play of the horrendous defense, headlined by Dan Girardi and Michal Rozsival that really hurt this team. The forwards were so busy trying to collapse into the slot because of how horrible the coverage was that they didnt have the chance to play up the ice. Now don’t get me wrong, the puck pursuit, and hunger to win battles was downright pathetic, but to me it all starts with how you play in front of your own net, and Girardi and Rozsival basically giftwrapped tonights game for the Habs.

Is it time to panic? No. Games like this happen, while it seems to be happening with alarming consistency for these Rangers, they are still right in the thick of the playoff race. Let’s see how they are in a week shall we? But if a player was to become available, like say, Ilya Kovalchuk, I for one would welcome his acquisition, even if it comes at the expense of Dubinsky or Callahan, or another young stud or 2, because players like Kovalchuk come around once a generation for a team like the Rangers.

I think this year though you also have to acknowledge that..

It’s really tough to have a young team, where basically none of the vets are playing even remotely good hockey. I’m not necessarily talking about why we arent scoring goals, but why we arent playing good hockey for the vast majority of our games. It’s been rare this season where you can say the Rangers played well but lost. It’s been far more common for them to play Poor< ->OK and win….that’s thanks to our goalie, and our phenomenal sniper.

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I’m sure tomorrow all everyone will talk about are either Tortorellas confrontation with Brooks after the game, or with the fight Carcillo had with Gaborik and nobody stepped into help. So let’s start there shall we? With regards to Torts and Brooks, I think it’s really just a matter of Torts trying to “protect” his guys by doing what he did to Brooks. If you read Brooks you know pretty much all he does is bash Sather, Redden, Rozsival, and Tortorella…then rinses and repeats. I feel like Torts is just trying to tell Brooks that they know what he is doing, and they’ve had enough of his BS. Torts has this right, and I don’t mind it one bit, though to be fair, the question Brooks was asking, which relates to the second issue, was not only fair, but was one I was really hoping Torts would address in the post game press conference before I even saw it. The issue of course was whether Girardi, or someone else, should have stepped into the fight, and saved Gabby from the beatdown. I of course am firmly on the side of, penalties be damned, Gaborik is way more important than 1 penalty, or 1 game lost if you happen to give up a game winning goal on the ensuing penalty kill. The Rangers, and Girardi in particular, should have leveled Carcillo the second it happened. I know a lot of people are bashing Carcillo, but he’s not doing anything that Avery wouldn’t do himself. Anyone remember Avery bashing Tim Thomas upside the head? That was worse. Carcillo did his job, and took our best player out of the game for a very long 5 minutes.

The game itself wasn’t really played all that badly by the Rangers, who really only had 1 quality shot on net, by Aaron Voros of all people, for the entire game. The trouble is the Flyers played a superb game, gave the Rangers absolutely nothing, and were relentless on the forecheck.

Prior to this season I picked the Flyers to win the Eastern Conference, and I really felt they would come out of the East and possibly win it all if their goaltending was good. Well, their goaltending didn’t need to be good, because their skaters were so damn dominant in all aspects that the Rangers seldom found themselves in prime shooting position, and when they were they either shot it wide, or, more often than not, the Philadelphia skaters were there to deflect the shots away. I tip my hat to the Flyers, they were outstanding.

Next game is against the Habs, and should be a tough win. Habs aren’t all that bad, and their stadium is always a decided home ice advantage, as long as the team is playing semi competent out there.

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I watch a lot of Rangers hockey, as I am sure you do as well. The vast majority of it comes from my living room in front of my nice projection TV. It’s been this way my whole life, even when I lived in NY, NJ, Texas, and now in Atlanta, I always watch a ton of games at home, and only a few live. Yes, even when I lived in NY. Why? Because you can sort of remove yourself from the crowd, from the people around you, and just focus on the game when you are at home. You don’t have distractions, you don’t fall victim to the gang mentality of the Garden (SHOOT THE PUCK!), instead you can just sit back, take it all in, and come to your own opinion on what went right, and what went wrong. Today though was one of a handful of games over the past few years that I have watched at home where I thought to myself, damn, I wish I was there watching it live. To be there as Wade Redden had a fight and was cheered, to be there as the Rangers stormed back from a 2 goal deficit and played their most passionate, intense hockey of the season was quite simply awe inspiring. I wish I could have been there to heckle the Habs fans with the Ole! Ole! Ole! chant. I wish I could have been there to boo Scott Blowmez every time he touched the puck. I wish I could have been there to watch Captain Cardboard Chris Drury erupt into an emotional tirade after having his stick held. I wish I could have been there to watch Torts and Avery have their shouting match, only to have Avery back on the ice as though it never happened. I wish I could have been there to watch Vinny Prospal make a gorgeous passing play to set up Dubi for the easiest goal he will likely have in his career. I wish I could have been there to watch Ryan Callahan do his thing. I wish I could have been there to watch the stick salute, because this was one game where I wanted to give this team a standing ovation.

With that said, let’s see them do it again on Tuesday. And by “let’s see” I mean, you all will see, because that is another Versus game, and I am blacked out, where there will be a lack of a post game wrap.

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All in all I don’t think the Rangers played that bad of a game tonight. They definitely worked hard, tried hard, did a lot of good things, they just couldn’t get the right results. The thing that jumped out at me though was the shot selection the Rangers had. Actually if you think about it, this is a huge problem theyve had the entire year, when do you shoot the puck, and when do you not shoot the puck. Many times the defenseman will take a point shot with no traffic whatsoever only to lead to an easy save and a stoppage. Or if they shoot the puck with traffic in front, its elevated making blocking the puck much easier. The defenseman seem to have a problem getting their shots low, and on net when there is traffic in front. Most of it is simply mental, which means it is something they should be working on ad-nauseum if they aren’t already.

It’s not the defenseman only though, the forwards are doing the same crap as well, shooting when they should be passing, and passing when they should be shooting. Chris Drury had a clean shot at the goal from the slot about 15 feet away, he tried to pass. You never pass in that situation. Sean Avery had a few great passing opportunities where he elected to shoot instead. It’s rampant all over this team. To me this is something they need to work on, because shot selection is used everywhere, PP, PK, etc. For a team that anticipates where to be defensively when on the PK (ie the opposite of shot selection) so well, they are absolutely putrid at doing the opposite for themselves.

If I’m Torts, I’m not too disappointed in the game as far as how the team played, but I have a lot of work to do, thats for damn sure.

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