Sorry for the delay, watched the Pittsburgh game till it finished and then grabbed some grub. Heres the long and the short of it. The Rangers have been playing poor hockey for 4 games now. Luckily they have picked up 6 out of a possible 8 points, but I think we can all agree that they really dont even deserve a single point for their efforts. Tomorrow against the Leafs is going to be tough, the Leafs are just about as hot as we are right now, and have played against far better competition than us. Id like to think we can grab 2 points in regulation, but right now I am pretty dubious.
Another interesting side story is that Jaromir Jagr needs 2 more goals in his final 4 games to have his 15 consecutive 30 goal season. Can Jagr do it? I guess we will know in 7 days.
Henrik Lundqvist is also an interesting story. He hasnt been sharp for a few periods now. This whole game, and the game against the Habs till he was pulled. Im not sure whats going on with him but hes giving up tons of rebounds and not making some of the stops he usually does. Can you blame him for any of the goals? Maybe not, you could certainly point to the suddenly invisible Rangers D. Or perhaps even moreso to the Rangers O which flat out refused to play D in this one for long stretches of the game. However Henrik has to take his lumps if you praise him, as I have, for his superior play prior to the game in Montreal. He probably could have had 2 of those goals, he didnt, we still won, I hope he gets over it.
This Ryan Callahan kid has continued to impress me. Hes got a terrific understanding of the game, far ahead of most kids his age.
Rangers win out, theyve got the 6th seed. If they win tomorrow, they would just need 1 more point to clinch a playoff spot.
Just win baby. Here are the projections:
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 | 79 | 90 | 94 | 6 |
| 7 | NY Rangers | 78 | 89 | 94 | 7 |
| 8 | Montreal | 79 | 88 | 92 | 8 |
| 9 | Toronto | 78 | 87 | 92 | 9 |
| 10 | Carolina | 78 | 84 | 89 | 10 |
| 11 | NY Islanders | 78 | 84 | 89 | 11 |
As you can see, according to tonights calculations, I project the Rangers as MAKING the playoffs. Therefore using these numbers we can project what the Rangers would have to go over the remaining 4 games in order to secure the projected 93 points needed to secure the final playoff spot:
1-2-1
0-3-3
-Inferno