You’ve probably noticed ive been relatively….vague in some of my posts. Pointing out how I wasn’t too pleased with what I was seeing, but how the results seemed to be there regardless. I guess I might have been influenced a bit by some of those “a wins a win” people, which I most definitely am not. I should kick my own ass for letting those kinda people influence what I say, but regardless, it happened. We played a very mediocre game against the Flyers. I was a little reserved because we got the win, but I’ll say it now, the Rangers got so few quality chances, and simply did not play a good game. I was actually quite surprised with Tom Renney for saying, and I’m more or less quoting him here “There was not a thing about our game that I didn’t like”. I was taken aback by that statement. We played a passive, reactive game, with very few quality chances. Oh, we definitely got shots on goal, but the vast vast VAST majority of them were crap shots, from long distance with no screens. Actually quite like the goal Drury scored on today (softie). I’d go as far as to say that Martin Brodeur might call them easy shots, and for a guy like him, facing the easy shots he usually faces, thats saying something.

Then today, the Rangers kinda did what I expected them to do. They continued on a downward trend, where they let their goalie bail them out of trouble time and time again. Except today, Henrik couldn’t do it because the quality of those shots were such that even he couldn’t stop them all. Oh, he definitely got his fair share of them, probably 5 or 6 mind blowing saves, equaling the performance by Dipietro who was good sans Drury goal. But the Isles got so many high quality shots, that it wasn’t surprising that a few went in.

Also, I remember taking a lot of crap from people for my negative reaction to the Scotty Gomez signing.

Name	Goals	Assists	Contract Length	Contract Value/Year	Dollars/Point, Projected to 82 games (This Year)
Michael Peca	1	5	1	1.9 Mil	$44,468
Michael Nylander	4	9	4	4.475 Mil	$58,773
Robert Lang	6	7	2	4 Mil	$52,534
Scotty Gomez	3	4	7	7.357 Mil	$192,256

I stand by what I said, signing him was a mistake, unless of course we win the cup.

Ok, im really getting annoyed now, because the more I look at things, the more depressing it gets. Still though, on the plus side, Marc Staal continues to show improvement, and weve got a world class goalie between the pipes, so not everything is terrible in Ranger Land.

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Through the first 10-12 minutes of the second, all I could do was shake my head in disgust. The poor play from the first continued, and actually degraded as the period kept going. However it seemed like the team finally understood they had stopped playing their game, and you actually saw some typical Rangers hockey thereafter. Id like to say that they were the picture of perfection during the end of the period, but like you, I was unable to watch because of technical difficulties at the mausoleum.

The Chris Drury goal was a softie. Henrik stops that 999 times out of 1000, but DiPietro is not Henrik. Look for the Islanders to come out of the gate hard in the 3rd. Rangers need to keep playing disciplined and not give the Isles too many power plays.

Speaking of power plays, how about Petr Prucha taking that penalty in the first? Good for him! Its about time mighty mouse starts hitting back. Really, what he needs to do is start elbowing people who charge into him. Particularly behemoths like Andy Sutton who seems to be going out of his way to hit Prucha, rather than trying to play solid defense.

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The Rangers were about —><— that close to having a complete meltdown in the first period there. Call it playing with fire, call it whatever you want, but we did not look like the Rangers, honestly, we kind of looked like the Tampa Bay Lightning in that first period, and that is not the style of hockey we should be playing either (Devilsesque in the 3rd against the Flyers). I’m not sure what’s been going on as of late, but we need to straighten up. The Islanders held the majority if the play in the period, and had way more glorious scoring chances than we did.

Was it just me, or did the 4th line look like our best line out there? If that continues, we are going to be in a world of trouble. Also, Marc Staal was simply a beast out there. Threw 2 huge hits, and played confidently with the puck. Keep taking those steps forward Marc, soon you will be the best defenseman on the team bar none.

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