See there, I’m not all about the negativity! All I want is my team to play to the way they are capable of. Against a very strong offensive team (numbers aside) the Rangers put on a clinic of how you can use puck control, and smart defense to counter attack the enemy, like we should be doing. The first 7 minutes was kind of a feeling out process, where the Rangers seemed a little…I almost want to say nervous. Anyway, after they got that out of their system then definitely brought their lunch pails with them and went to work.

I would like someone explain to me why Brandon Dubinsky didn’t draw a call when he was very dangerously crosschecked head first into the boards. Those are the kinds of plays that can end up in paralysis. I was 1000 times more angry about that then the goal allowed.

Rangers, hopefully, have turned the page. I think we’re seeing a genesis of a team from offensively inept, to the offensive juggernauts that then can be.

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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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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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That’s it. Meh. Nothing really noteworthy happened. It was boring hockey to watch.

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Enough with the complaining about the officiating folks. The Rangers were called for 4 penalties during that period:

1 was a legit call on Hollweg for kneeing

1 was a legit call on Avery for slashing

1 was a legit call on Hossa for allowing Brodeur to dive near him

1 was a legit call on Scotty Gomez for making an excellent defensive play and not allowing the Devils to score

Puhlease. Rangers didnt get a single call there way that period. Dubinsky took a pretty bad cross check to his back before knocking the goal off the moorings, and there were a plethora of other calls that just plain and simple werent called.

With that said, the Rangers played a period full of holes. They didnt look sharp, although the effort level was decisively there, the execution was not. I wonder how much of it was Tom tinkering with lines that, to me, were working just fine, to put together a questionable trio of Dubinsky Jagr and Hossa. I’m not sure how it makes sense to put those 3 together, unless you just want to do it for the sake of doing it. Dubinsky certainly has been playing much better, but not even remotely well enough to be playing with Jagr, I’m sorry, he just hasn’t. I’m all for playing kids, probably more than the next guy, but you’re nuts if you think Dubinsky should be playing with Jagr, it just makes zero sense. It’s like trying to rationalize playing Betts with Shanahan to bring more defense, or playing Prucha with Orr to bring more scoring with the 4th line.

It’s retarded. Dubinsky and Prucha were showing some GREAT chemistry, and, imho so was Gomez and Jagr.

Sadly, I now expect Renney to make the moves that DON’T make sense before making the moves that do.

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I’ve had this argument over on the HFBoards for a while now, but I figure its worth at least mentioning here. In my personal and not so professional opinion, Henrik Lundqvist is the best goalie in the league. Better than Brodeur, Better than Luongo, better than anyone else. He’s just a step ahead. Honestly, if the guy would stop handling the puck behind his own net, he probably would have given up 3 fewer goals than he already has. Which is amazing considering hes had 3 shutouts already this year.

No goalie is better at stopping, and starting then Henrik. He goes from one shot, to getting square for the next shot in the blink of an eye. It is flat out scary how quick his lateral acceleration is. The funny thing is Henrik got a shutout while managing to kill a 4 minute penalty with 7 minutes to go in the 3rd, with one defenseman in the sin bin (Tyutin), one defenseman out with a hurt back (Malik), and one defenseman out after taking a puck to the face (Girardi). Thats 3 of your top 4 defenseman out of the play, not to mention the Rangers already have Straka, Avery and Callahan on the IR, who are all penalty killers (though Callahan not so much) in their own right.

The penalty kill was good, not great, but Henrik was freaking amazing. When the defense broke down, he was there. When the opposing forwards got their chances, he was there first. Its just ridiculous how good he was in this game. Let’s face it, this was a game we had no business winning. Although we got 2 goals, and certainly worked harder in the final 40 minutes than the prior 20, we definitely were not the best team on the ice. Washington deserved 2 points, and at least 4-6 goals, instead they get a shutout against and are winless in Madison Square Garden since around the time Michael Nylander had his first kid…

Take the 2 points, and run, that’s what I’m thinking here. We were lucky folks, don’t believe otherwise, the results didnt represent the reality of the game. 1 man won us this game, and right now, hes the best goalie in the league.

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