Usually when you call a player the anchor of a team, it is taken to be a good thing, as if, he is the steadying player on the ice, the one who holds the team together, then one you can always depend on.

Right now, when I call Jaromir Jagr the anchor of this team, I mean it in a more literal sense. Right now Jaromir Jagrs lackadaisical effort level and inability to do ANYTHING with, or without the puck, is literally stagnating the entire offensive attack. Everytime his line is on the ice, he either is turning the puck over, or their line is trapped deep for their entire shift, leading the other players on the ice to have to dig them out.

At this moment I think the 5 best players on the ice are:

The king is showing why he should be the runaway choice for Vezina and Hart trophy winners, at least for any voter with common sense. He’s standing on his head out there, and his D and Offense is giving him just about nothing to work with.

The Rangers are looking very much like a team playing without their opening night top defensive pair, without their top line left winger, and without their sparkplug 3rd line winger. I praised the Rangers for their depth, but the injuries that they have sustained have been tough to combat, especially when the players you want to be your anchors, are actually playing like literal anchors instead of figurative anchors.

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No, it’s nothing big, so don’t freak out. Actually I thought we played fairly well. The Lightning have an absolutely spectacular offensive game, and style, that is very hard to contain for 60 minutes. These arent the New Jersey Devils here folks, they have some spectacular offensive players. So what is it I don’t like? It was something I saw Marc Staal do in that period.

Now that the D are actively getting involved in the offense, scoring (assuming my memory is right here) 6 straight Rangers goals, they seem to be doing things that are very uncharacteristic. The thing that I don’t like that Staal did was what won us the game against the Pens the other day. Thats the defenseman getting involved in the offense when there are fewer than 5 forwards/defenseman on the ice for your team. It’s a big no-no in my book. I don’t mind the defenseman getting involved by taking point shots when it’s 4 on 4, or worse, but I just don’t like it when they take the puck deep, with so much more open ice in your zone, you leave yourself wide open for a counter attack, and counter attack the Lightning did by nearly getting a breakaway, and at least drawing a necessary penalty on Jagr.

You can blame Jagr on that play too, but if the defenseman is the one who actively made the decision to pinch, and Jagr is NOT the guy I want standing between the Lightning forward, and Henrik Lundqvist.

I have no problems at all with the Defenseman getting more involved when we are on the PP or at 5 on 5. But don’t do it with 4 men or less, despite what happened against the Pens.

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So I’m going to do my best to try to explain why it is the Isles just own us. I think it is a combination of a few things.

So that really sums it up, at least to me. I think those are the reasons why they have really dominated us, in winning 3 of 3 against us, and why we look so pathetic against them. Some of these things are correctable, some are not. I just hope Renney does his best to fix what can be fixed.

P.S.

What the hell is going on with our Power Play?!?!?!?!?!?!?!

P.P.S.

You guys HAVE to check out this link about our resident scapegoat Jason Strudwick…

P.P.P.S.

Heres a new game for you, it’s called, Where’s Jaromir Jagr. See if you can spot him… It’s almost as hard as it was to spot him on the ice today against the Islanders.

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Blown assignments are just killing the Rangers tonight. Marcel Hossa with the epic brain fart that cost the Rangers a goal within seconds of the period starting. If you watched the game, then Joe and Sam did a great job of pointing it out. Basically Marcel was paying attention to the faceoff rather than paying attention to his man. Because of this his man blew right by him on a set play, and came in on Henrik more or less uncontested with the first goal.

Speaking of faceoffs, have the Rangers won any in this game?! I swear it seems like every time there is a draw, the Isles are the ones winning it. With Gomez, Drury, Betts, and Dubinsky, one would think faceoffs would be a team strength, but they just seem to be getting railroaded.

Also, I have been relatively quiet about the reffing these past few games, because for the bulk of the season the reffing has been really solid, but the Rangers couldn’t buy a call in the second. I would be irate if I were Tom Renney. Islanders got away with a ton of crap in that period, and the Rangers got some fairly soft calls against them.

Finally, someone needs to explain this to me, because I could be 100% wrong, but when Sean Avery gets called for the double minor, and (Sutton?) the Islanders player gets called for the 2 minute penalty, shouldnt the first 2 minutes of each cancel each other out, then the final 2 minutes be a powerplay for the Isles? Instead, it appeared to me the Rangers were told to put 2 men in the box for 2 minutes, instead of 1 man in the box for 4.

I need explaining on that one.

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I could be dead wrong here, especially since I don’t watch the Isles all that much, but I don’t think Dipietro is the kind of goalie you want to tick off like Avery did in the 1st period. Again, I could be dead wrong, but it seems to me that Dipietro is the kind of goalie that rises to the occasion when people try to intimidate him, or get under his skin, instead of wilt like a pansy (Uncle Daddy).

I think this is one game where Avery should keep away from the goalie, and try to get under someone elses head, and that would be Brendan Witt. If you can get Witt off his game, then you can free up Jagr to do some magical stuff out there. That may be the key to this game, because it looks like neither team is giving an inch out there.

The Rangers powerplay continues to be a source of male pattern baldness in my neck of the woods. It’s not just the fact that they are ineffective, it’s the fact that they can’t even seem to get set up in their zone, or even penetrate the zone. Horrendous power play display for our team is really killing us.

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If you came to this site looking for yours truly to eat some crow on my constant ragging on Jason Strudwick, you should just hit the back button now, because it ain’t gonna happen. That was just a picture perfect, thread the needle, make you pump your fist BEAUTIFUL pass by Paul Mara. Anyone could have scored that goal, all you need to do is be able to skate, and use a hand to hold a stick. Mara practically put it in the net for Strudwick, hitting the tape of his stick, between the defenders legs, and making it go in.

You know what they say the best offensive is a good defense….or was it the best defense is a good offense? Or was it when your defense is playing offense, then your offense doesnt have to play defense? Uhh, someone get me some tylenol. Anyways, the Rangers D were phenomenal in this game. They played really well in the 2nd and 3rd periods, and accounted for all 4 Ranger goals. That is no small feat, because remember, the Rangers achilles heel was going to be their horrendous defense.

Henrik Lundqvist was good in this game. Not spectacular, though he made some really difficult saves, I think he should have had Crosbys goal, and should have controlled the puck before Sykora scored. If you watch the replay on Crosbys goal, instead of Henrik doing his typical lightning quick side to side, he sorta 2-steps over. It’s hard to describe, but its like he did a slide, it didnt go far enough, and he hopped a bit to try to get in position. If he slid over in 1 fluid motion, he would have gobbled that puck up, especially since Crosby shanked it. The Sykora one was a bit more forgivable since it was his own player that played the puck into him, but he had 2 chances to stop it, and missed with his glove both times, perhaps im being overly critical, but when you witness perfection night in and night out, sometimes the little things bug you. (Imagine if I were a Penguins fan, I would have a field day ripping MAF to shreds).

I have to give credit to Tom Renney in this one, he definitely did a great job adjusting to the overwhelming Pittsburgh counter attack in the first period. He did so by matching up Fedor Tyutin and Daniel Girardi against Sid the kid. Toots and Girardi were just phenomenal out there. Both were physical, and both moved the puck well. Really, what can you say? They are quickly developing into a top 5-10 defensive pairing in the entire NHL.

Rangers are now in sole possession of first place in the Atlantic (after a horrendous start), and have won 9 of 10, and 5 in a row. If they had started the season off like they should have, they would probably be tied with the Senators for best record in the NHL.

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Tom Renney to Sidney Crosby during the first intermission:

Sidney, I would like to introduce you to Fedor and Daniel, they will be shutting you down for the rest of the evening.

Yes, it’s easy to look at how all 3 goals were by defenseman, it’s even easier to note that all 3 were against the most overrated goalie in the entire NHL, who is literally swiss chees with skates. But those things are to be expected (well, at least the second thing is), and don’t really make me say wow. What did make me say wow was the way Girardi and Tyutin contained the Crosby line (for the most part). Of course nobody will be able to contain those guys forever, but those 2 guys gave you about as much as you can expect from a pairing. They were physical, they were positioned well, and they used their forwards for help to get them out of jams. I’m telling you folks, these 2, with Staal, Sauer, and Sanguinetti, are going to be the anchors for a defensive system few teams will be able to do much against.

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This Crosby fellow is quite good. Ok, maybe really good. Ok, really really really good. Either way, he took over this game. Crosby had a goal and an assist, and could have easily had 2 more (great save by Henrik, and a post). Rangers are flat out getting dominated, decimated, destroyed. Yes, they had a few chances, but this game was all Pittsburgh for the majority of it. Rangers really look flat and tired, perhaps the road trip is wearing on them, perhaps the 3rd game in 4 nights is wearing on them, or perhaps they just didnt come to play. No matter the reason, they have to suck it up, and play a lot better. A 2 goal deficit is nothing against the Swiss Cheese goalie the pens have in the net. Rangers just need to clean up their mistakes. I sure hope they do it soon.

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The phrase “take the 2 points and run” seems to apply here. Rangers played an atrocious first period, but played very well thereafter (the slow start might have been a result of playing less than 24 hours ago). They played well enough to limit the high powered Flyers to something like 23 shots on goal, even though the vast majority of those were high high high HIGH quality chances.

Good for Petr Prucha, scoring the crucial 3rd goal that gave the Rangers the 1 point they wanted (Though getting 2 was definitely a bonus). He had an up and down game, one that, hopefully, can be a building block for the youngster. He’s got way too much talent to just give up on like many of my Ranger Bretherin are preaching. You dont just give a player like him away. If you can move him for a piece of the puzzle like Seabrook, or what have you, then you make the move, but you dont just give him away.

Henrik Lundqvist was great in this one, though his save percentage will certainly take a beating. He made some highlight reel saves, but gave up some mighty soft goals. I thought he should have definitely had all 3 goals, I dont think you can make excuses on any of them. But he more than made up for it with some ridiculous saves, so we just deal with it I guess.

8-1 in their last 9. 3-0 on this road trip so far, the Rangers might very well be on that roll we all expected them to go on. Let’s face it, this is an extremely talented team, and all those warnings of “eventually they will get going” weren’t just hot air. The only problem is, the better they play, the less I have to complain about

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Ok, so I tried to find a worthwhile audio clip of Cartman saying “nuh uh I donta rack dishapline” but I couldnt find anything worthwhile. Well, you get the point, high tech visual cues or not.

UPDATE: This should be good enough

Rangers had this game for the taking, they were dominating for the vast majority of the second, then they take one penalty, then another, then another, then another, all within moments of each other. Eventually you are going to get burned. Im not going to complain about the veracity of the calls because I think the reffing has been iffy both ways, so you cant complain about that, but you can complain about the Rangers not keeping their composure. You have to stay outta the penalty box fellas, especially against a lethal power play like the ones Philly bolsters.

Right now, I just want a point out of this game, I’ll take it and run.

It’ll take a solid 20 minute effort to secure the point, because I expect the Flyers to come out strong.

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