Now that I have had a bit of time to soak in this loss, I actually find myself exhausted. So here goes an abrupt post game post, that will likely be more scattered than usual.
The Rangers didn’t deserve to win. Not only did they play like absolute dog crap for 50 minutes, but they seemed to flat out not give a crap that they were playing like that. Chris Drury, Scotty Gomez, and worst of all Jaromir Jagr just didnt come to play. Jaromir had the worst gave Ive ever seen him have. EVER. He was a flat out abomination, if you could only see it live, you could see him dog it on each and every shift. He would slowly, and grudgingly come back to his own zone only if the pressure was sustained long enough for him to make it back there. He repeatedly left drop passes for the Thrashers to take the other way, and he consistently tried to pass through 2 or 3 players, or take on 2 or 3 players instead of being patient and letting the play develop. He was so bad out there I wanted do jump on the ice and strangle him. Jaromir, you are the captain, how about you act like it?
Then, to make matters worse, Thomas Pock has about as bad a game as a guy can have. Consistently beaten one on one….or frankly in any situation, he was flat footed, and beaten. His passes were consistently intercepted, or into the skates of his teammates. While watching the game live, it looked like he was on the ice for 4 of the goals against. Thomas, if youre going to go to the press and whine and moan about a lack of playing time, you sure as hell better play better than an ECHLer when given the chance. Pock was so bad I actually found myself missing Malik and Strudwick….yes, thats how freaking bad he was.
The sad part (or I suppose encouraging part) was that the only 2 players who had good games were Marc Staal and Brandon Dubinsky. Literally every other player SUCKED out there. Nigel Dawes did nothing, the vets did nothing, the coach did nothing, we just SUCKED.
You guys know me well enough to know, I dont give a rats ass if we win or lose games, what I care about is how we play the game, the effort level I see, the “smarts” that I see, and folks, I was infuriated big time with the crap I saw out there tonight. Ive been watching Rangers hockey for a long time now, and I cant remember a poorer puck support effort that what we saw tonight. For a team that was supposedly practicing and working on how to play as a unit, they sure as hell looked disheveled and haphazard out there. The puck support was at an all time low, with the team spread out all over the ice, and the “5 in the picture” philosophy abandoned with regularity.
There were only 2 minor things I saw that made me happy. One was that the team finally got pissed enough at the Thrashers physical, and possibly dirty (live it looked clean, but enough people on the message boards have said otherwise for me to at least want to see some replays) play that they started to fight back. That is a good thing. It shows that were aren’t complete pushovers. Secondly we showed some life down the stretch. Generated some offense, and actually showed that we give a crap about these games. Unfortunately doing that for the last 5-10 minutes of a game won’t win you many brownie points with this blogger.
Well what do you know, This post wasnt that short after all. I guess its a testament to just how freaking pissed off I am right now.
