The New York Devils. Thats what we were in the 3rd period.

Im disgusted. I hate sitting on leads. They were reactive for the first 14 minutes of that period, then finally started to be proactive the final 6. We wont win many games conceding their zone and the neutral zone for 14 minutes at a time. I know a win is a win is a win, but you CAN NOT just sit back for almost an entire period and let the opposing team come in freely time and time again. You won’t will take a beating like that, over the course of a year. I know the Devils made a near dynasty out of doing just that, but that is not what I want to see this team become. I could tolerate the low scoring before because we just werent burying golden opportunities. But there is a VAST difference between playing to win, and playing not to lose, and sitting back in your zone is playing not to lose.

Oh yeah, Henrik Lundqvist is still godlike.

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When it comes to injuries, particularly early in the season, I always tend to err on the side of caution. That’s why I didn’t want Jagr playing tonight. I would have sacrificed a possible 2 points here, so long as the captain gets healthy. Instead it appears he re-injured his hip flexor/groin and probably won’t be back in this game. It’s obviously way too early to tell, but regardless one would hope the team would realize how important this guy is, and have him sit out a semi-meaningless November game in favor of having him when the points really matter. It is also the reason I wanted Sean Avery to err on the side of caution, and it appears he may have hurt his shoulder again (though it’s possible it’s nothing).

Either way, Rangers played a pretty good period, but again were caught many times out of position or with too many men deep only to have Henrik bail us out….yet again.

Eventually Henrik is going to cool off folks. Maybe not to the point of being mediocre, but no goalie is going to keep posting shutouts or 1 goalers on a regular basis. The Rangers need to score, end of story.

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What a weird period. If you look at it statistically, the Rangers outshot the Flyers by a 52:1 margin…..ok, maybe not, but a 22-11 shots on goal differential is nothing to sneeze at. Still though, I’m not so sure I would call this period a success. A few times the Rangers were caught with 4 men WAY deep in the zone (below the circles), and a few times the defenseman were a bit careless with the puck. The Flyers probably had the higher quality chances, by far and away, but the Rangers have the only goal. So I ask again, what the hell is going on here?!

Overall, Henrik Lundqvist was once again the story. Although Biron had a lot more saves, you could tell the difficulty of the saves he has (30 foot slappers with no traffic) vs the quality of saves Henrik had (3 men in his face, smashing away at the puck) is no comparison. I truly wish the Rangers tighten things up a bit (say wha, the ~best defensive team in the league, tighten things up?!), there are too many things out there that I am seeing which make me nervous.

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