For those of you who dont know, I reside in Atlanta, and while I could have gone to the game, but decided not to at the last minute. In hindsight I am glad I didnt go because this would have been heartbreaking to stomach live. Rangers outplayed the Thrashers so badly its not even funny. They had the better chances, and everything that could have gone wrong, did. Henrik played awesome yet again, the kid gives up 2 goals and takes the loss for something like the 8th time this year. Thats a sickening stat.
But for the silverlining look at things, you had to be happy with the noticiablity of Dubinsky and Callahan. While Callahan played a bit more of a passive game than what I would have liked, he still was involved, and thats what you want to see. Dubinsky looked great out there, although I was shocked to see him dropped by Dupuis on a good clean hit. Like I have said before, Brandon still could use some time in the minors to develop certain things in his game, but he has impressed the heck outta me, even to the point where I dont mind him finishing up the season here. The shame of it all is you can pretty much expect the Pack to lose a lot of games from here on out because of lineup depletion, not that it matters in the big picture, but playoff experience, of any kind, is useful.
Jaromir Jagr looks like hes going to miss scoring 30 goals for the first time since the 90-91 season (thats off the top of my head, it could be wrong but I think i’m right here). Jagr just hasnt looked himself, hes passing when he should be shooting, and hes not hitting the spots like he did last year. It happens, I think Jagr needs to regroup next year and come out guns-a-blazing.
One has to wonder what this team will look like next year. We have a lot of free agent opportunities, but some of these kids might be worthy of those spots, not free agents.
Guys, don’t feel disappointed if we don’t make the playoffs this year, I think the Rangers have shown some resiliency, and much more importantly, their kids (Tyutin, Prucha, Henrik, Girardi, Pock, Liffiton, Callahan, Dubinsky, etc) have got some decent looks at the majors, and some of them look like they are keepers, and some of them look like they are stars in the making.
I feel upbeat all of a sudden, its amazing what typing your thoughts out can do for ya!
Here are the updated Projections since all the relevant games are already done:
How this works:
Basically what I do, is to take the points a team has managed till now, divide it by the games played, then multiply it by 82. That should accurately project what the team should finish like, unless there is an extreme streak one way or the other. I will no longer be including the points per game column because lets face it, you don’t care how many points per game!
| Current Rank |
Team | Games Played | Points | Projected Final Points |
Projected Rank |
| 6 | Tampa Bay | 71 | 82 | 95 | 6 |
| 7 | NY Islanders | 70 | 78 | 92 | 7 |
| 8 | Carolina | 72 | 78 | 89 | 8 |
| 9 | Toronto | 71 | 77 | 89 | 9 |
| 10 | NY Rangers | 71 | 77 | 89 | 10 |
| 11 | Montreal | 72 | 76 | 87 | 11 |
| 12 | Boston | 70 | 73 | 86 | 12 |
As you can see,according to tonights calculations, I project the Rangers as NOT MAKING the playoffs. Therefore using these numbers we can project what the Rangers would have to go over the remaining 11 games in order to secure the projected 90 points needed to secure the final playoff spot:
6-4-1
5-3-3
4-2-5
3-1-7
2-0-9
-Inferno