I’m on a laptop right now, and trying to navigate through various statistics and record keeping sites isn’t easy, but according to my memory the last 2 or 3 wins by the Rangers have been shutouts or 1 goalers, and the games they have been losing they have given up 5+ goals. So it’s not really all that surprising that the Rangers picked up a win here in shutout manner. What is surprising is that they pretty much dominated the vast majority of this game, bad goaltending or not. Methinks the biggest reason is Scotty Gomez playing with Jaromir Jagr. The 2 of them looked great, and even though you can almost bet that Mr. Jagr will downplay the chemistry we all clearly saw, I still think this is the pairing we should be using.
You also do need to taper the enthusiasm that I know all of us are feeling. Because lets face it, Sid the kid didn’t have a Crosbyesque game, he had a pretty pedestrian game out there, not to mention the horrid goaltending they got from a goalie who, im not ashamed to admit, I have never heard of.
So, let us be happy they won, but hope that the Rangers don’t hit their overconfidence game so quickly after a long losing streak.
You may remember me mentioning the overconfidence games before, but if you haven’t a quick refresher. The Rangers season are pretty easy to get a handle on. They win a bunch of games, getting better and better, then they play a great great great game where they dominate a team from start to finish. After that they continue to win game, playing crappier and crappier as the games go on. They start to think they can win games with the bad habits they display, and then go on a prolonged losing streak. We are on the tail end of said losing streak (I hope), but sometimes those losing streaks have a game where the Rangers pull it all together for 1 night, and think they can go right back to their old bad habits again, and the losing streak goes on.
Let’s just hope this is the start of something good, rather than a blip on a very murky radar.