That is the attitude the Rangers need to have after every game. This win is meaningless without tomorrow. You can not rest on your laurels, you can not just assume you will keep winning because of one game. No, you need to bust your butt on each and every shift, you need to crash the net, you need to be disciplined, and you have to be hungrier than your opponents.
Say it with me. This win is meaningless without tomorrow. I want it to be our mantra, because we all have seen this before. Rangers play a great game, then the next one they come out flat and either barely win, or lose. When was the last time the Rangers had back to back blowouts (4+ differential)? I can’t even remember it’s been so long. That’s just how meaningless this game needs to be in their minds. They accomplished nothing, all they did was undo what they did against the Canes. They have a ways to go before they are were they should be, which is in first place in the division, and until they hit that point (and even after perhaps) they need to treat each win as follows…this win is meaningless without tomorrow. Win every game, and do not accept mediocrity. This team can be great when they want to be, when they force themselves to overcome their own personal inner demons that have been killing them. Hell, they won a game tonight without a single goal from Jagr, Gomez, or Straka, and yet you can definitely say the top line was fantastic out there. How rare is that?
Anyway, I think you get where im going with this. Beat the Devils, then beat the Habs, then win 5 out of the next 6, and then we’ll talk.
See everything I wrote for my first period thoughts? Good, thats exactly what I’m thinking after the second period. Rangers are up 4-0, and it could be 5 or 6-0 right now. Again I ask, why can’t they do this in all of their most games?
You literally saw a perfect execution of the Rangers Even Strength game plan against the Flyers. Always have a 3rd man high for defensive purposes (Gomez was noticeable in this aspect), driving the net and getting low shots there at the same time. And playing a disciplined game (1 penalty in a period is quite good). Now, its a shame I cant just call this the post game thoughts because sadly there are 2 periods left in this game, and man oh man the 2nd period is usually our worst. At least we start off on the power play, which hopefully should lead to some momentum to carry us through the first 5 minutes (usually where we have a lot of problems).
This is my problem with the Rangers though. They have a good enough team to win. They have more than a good enough team to win, they have an exceptional team. Now tell me, why cant they f***ing do this for 60 minutes? Why can’t they do it for more than 2 games in a row?!
You guys wanted to blame the Defense, or Henrik…I know, it’s what I kind of want to do as well. But I don’t think that is the problem tonight, nor for the vast majority of this season. Want to know what the problem is? The offense. If you seriously expect your goalie to make 1 or 2 goals stand up every single night, then you are out of your friggin mind. Here is a little study I did…
Rangers Score 0 Regulation Goals
Rangers Score 1 Regulation Goals
Rangers Score 2 Regulation Goals
Rangers Score 3 Regulation Goals
Number Of Occurances:
6
11
13
10
Required GAA To Win:
0.00
0.00
1.00
2.00
Weighted GAA Needed To Win These 40 Games Based On The Rangers Offense:
0.825
Just chew on that a little bit fellas. In 77% of the games we have played this year, Henrik needed to average a 0.825GAA in order to win those games (and actually just pick up 1 point in 6 of them).
0.825…I mean….Patrick Roy would have a nervous breakdown if you told him he needs to basically pitch a shutout in 2 out of every 10 games, and in the other 8, he can’t give up more than 1 goal. He would retire…or possibly put his rings in his ears and ignore you…
To put it another way, if we scored just 3 goals, every single game (no more, no less), and lose every game that goes into overtime our record would be 28-12-12, good enough for 68 points and the 2nd best record in the NHL. Know what that means? Our defense and goaltending is doing its job. It means in just 12 games this year it has given up more than 3 goals, and in 28 of them has given up 2 or less, that is a fantastic job. It is our offense that needs to be taken to task, and our coaching staff who has been unable to wake up a dormant group of offensive dynamos, nor make anything really happen on our powerplays.
Put the blame where it belongs, squarely on the heads of our forwards.
Wanna know why we are losing? Because when we have glorious opportunities, we miss the net by 3 feet, or a defenseman makes a miraculous save, or the goalie looks like Patrick Roy. When we make a mistake, it ends up in the back of our net more often then not.
I know the knee jerk reaction is to blame the D for getting caught flat footed, or for blaming Henrik for letting in 2 goals, but I dont blame either. I blame the forwards. We are getting chances, we just aren’t scoring. It’s been the same exact way since day 1. And if you have to play 100% perfect hockey for 60 minutes to barely eek out a win, night in and night out, you are not a good team.
Let’s see how they react in the 3rd. They played much better at the end of the 2nd.
Marc Staal really pissed me off in that period. He really bugged me on one particular play. You know the one, where Scott Gomez gets boarded (it wasn’t as blatant as the Joe made it sound, Scotty turned at the least second, I don’t the Walker could have held up at that point, and he was just trying to finish his check), and all hell broke lose. Well if you watched the play, immediately after the hit in question Walker skated right to Staal to go for the puck. It was right then and there that Staal needed to drop the gloves and defend Gomez. Not Jagr, not Avery, but Staal. He had the chance, but he didn’t even look angry, he just looked like he wanted to make the defensive play. I give all the credit in the world to Sean Avery for defending Gomez despite both his wrists being seriously injured (and I think he reinjured them on the play, though we haven’t heard anything concrete yet), but it should never have come to that. Marc Staal needed to step up and make that play.
Other than that, this old-time hockey stuff is really fun. I dont have a single complaint to make. We played well, the reffing was actually pretty fair, except for the bogus dive on Jagr. Jagr doesn’t dive, period, it should never even be a question. I have never seen him dive in all the games I have seen him play, never in Pittsburgh, never in Washington, and never here. He just doesn’t do it. If you watch the play carefully his skate hits the Cane skate and thats what causes him to fall. But that 1 call wasn’t a big deal, everything else was pretty fair. The Rangers didn’t deserve to get a powerplay after the 2nd fight, both players dropped their gloves at the same time, and Orr even got away with an interference hit. We can’t complain about the reffing in this one.
The guys over at the NYRangersCast were having an argument over whether or not Gravy deserves to have his number retired. I could go into why I think he should have it, but why should I when Leetch3 from the ECSF message boards did the job for me.
Retiring a players jersey is about what a player meant to the franchise and organization NOT about hall of fame statistics. Somethings can’t be measured in goals and assists and Adam Graves was the heart and soul of this organization for a decade (and likely would have played longer if he didn’t get traded). He was just as important to this organization as Leetch, Messier and Richter. And very few players have ever meant more to the fans or the city…on Leetch night, Messier night and Richter night, the same thing was said about all 3 guys that they are what it means to be a Ranger and for the next 100 years when when people talk about what a Ranger should look like they will point to them. Love all 3 of those guys but BULL. no player symbolized being a Ranger and what you should want a player and PERSON to be like then Adam Graves…
But if you need to have statistics…how bout the fact that he is 3rd all time in rangers history with 280 goals behind only Gilbert and Ratelle, ahead of Messier, Bathgate, Hadfield, Leetch, Esposito, etc. 10th all time in points…9th all time in games played…8th all time in penalty minutes…10th in playoff games played…3rd in playoff goals, 10th in playoff points…1 2nd team all star selection, 1 all star game, King Clancy trophy, Bill Masterton trophy, 2-time Rangers’ mvp…4 Players’ Player Awards…1 ‘Crum Bum’ Award, 1 Frank Boucher trophy, 5 time Steven McDonald extra-effort award…7-time Rangers fan club Ceil Saidel Memorial Award (first 7 years it was given out)…1 Rangers Good Guy Award…and of course 1 Stanley cup
As far as comparing him to a guy like Greschner…this is not a one or the other situation. The issue should not be that Graves is going up instead of Greschner, the ISSUE should be the fact that Greschner isn’t going up WITH Graves. The fact that the organization has dropped the ball countless times in the past and failed to honor players that deserved it doesn’t justify further failures to honor the past.
Right now, Brandon Dubinsky IS the New York Rangers. I know that sounds pretty stupid when talking about a guy getting 3rd or 4th line minutes who has 7 goals and 12 assists but its kinda true. The guy is doing it all on every shift. Playing superb D in his own zone, rushing the puck like a man possessed, cycling the puck, finding the open spaces for shots, using his size to open up space for his teammates, and being absolutely relentless on the forecheck. He is our best player right now.
How scary is that…in both a good and bad way?
The really frightening thing is Brandon is still just a baby, he’s 21 years old, and not 100% physically mature yet. However he seems to be getting better, and more confident as every game goes by, and right now, you can thank this young pup for a 2 pointer that we probably don’t have without him.
The Rangers were outplayed, and most importantly out hustled by the Thrashers for the bulk of this game. Even some friendly officiating couldn’t help us, as we got some weak calls our way, and they let some of our stuff go. Still, we managed to steal some points, which we definitely need, thanks in large part to Mr. Dubinsky, and Mr. Dawes who both had a great sequence on that play.
The thing that is most noticeable about Brandon though, is how noticeable he is on every shift. It’s not just about the goal scored, or the assists. It’s how active he is in ever zone. He throws the body, he takes the body, he absorbs hits, and he makes plays. When he is on the ice, you notice him in positive ways all the time. That is exactly what I want from my Rangers team. To be noticeable and have a positive impact on the game each and every shift. It’s exactly what all of us need to demand from the older guys who sometimes don’t do that.
Speaking of noticeable, did anyone notice how effective our Power Play was? Good, me neither. The power play is flat out killing this team. Wanna talk about missed opportunities? We should have won this game in the first period, when we had several power plays including nearly a full 2 minutes with 2 men up. Our power play looks like a penalty kill at times, and our penalty kill just doesn’t look that great as it is.
One last thing before I go. Don’t give me that crap about blaming Lundqvist for this game (if we lost), when a team plays this poorly in the offensive zone, you can’t blame the goalie for giving up a single goal. I’m sorry, but that is unacceptable. If your team can’t score, you can’t win, period. We need to start scoring more goals out there, and I think the first thing that needs to be done is to give Dubinsky more and more ice time, and reunite Prucha on that line, because Shanny, in my opinion, is actually holding the kids back. He was very slow out there, again, and turned the puck over a few times. He lacks the energy those kids bring, and it is very noticeable out there. Give Prucha the spot back, and move Shanny to his spot, and make the Straka, Shanny, Drury line your 3rd line.
I will be heading off to the All Star game this weekend, so don’t expect much from me, I’ll be in downtown Atlanta probably 48 hours straight, so I will be way too tired to post thoughts on here. Hopefully I will meet a star or 2.
Enjoy the break everyone, I’ll see you on the other side.
After watching the second, if I asked you which team wants this win more, I think the resounding answer would be Atlanta.
How pathetic is that? When the greatest player in the history of your team is honored with a retirement ceremony, that you can’t even put forth an adequate effort to beat a team missing probably the best offensive player in the league this year.
Coming off of an emotional Leetch ceremony, and finding out #9 gets his well deserved night, you would think the Rangers would come out strong and “win one for the gipper”. Instead we see a continued laughable excuse for a powerplay despite reffing that was laughably bad (even, but bad). I hate watching this inconsistent brand of hockey the Rangers are showcasing. Off and On means mediocre, and mediocre is definitely what this team is.
