I think that is what this game really was all about. The Rangers didn’t do anything…well, except for their powerplay (i’ll get into that in a minute) to beat themselves. They played a phenomenal game in their own zone, they controlled the puck in the offensive zone, they got the puck to the net, they got traffic in front of the goalie for the second and 3rd chances, and they flat out destroyed the Kovalchukless Thrashers (as they should be on Thursday) from start to finish.

Good, now do it again.

And again.

And again.

Rangers have put themselves in this predicament. Where after a ridiculously one sided game, the fans can’t even get pumped about it. How sad is that? It’s ok though, sometimes that’s all it takes before a team goes on a crazy run, a win against a team that plays like crap.

I must say, I was surprised at how well these lines worked tonight. IMHO they didn’t make any kind of sense, but I guess by distributing the talent a bit more, the Rangers were able to sustain a more consistent offensive threat. This way you really can’t just go after 1 line, when all 3 are playing well and scoring.

With regards to the powerplay, I will give the Rangers credit, in that they didn’t allow their terrible power play to cause them to lose momentum. In fact just the opposite, it was almost as though they were waiting for the power play to end so they could turn on the offensive juice. At even strength, this was like watching that episode of South Park where the Detroit Red Wings play against the toddlers, and just annihilate them. Now the Rangers seriously can not rest on their laurels. If you were thinking the Rangers problems were solved by this one game, you thought wrong, because let’s face it, the Thrashers played terribly, and we still were unable to score on the Power Play. Beat a team that actually plays well, score on your power play, win 5 more games in a row, then we’ll talk.

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The Good: The Rangers 5 on 5 and Penalty Killing looks superb out there. It could be a function of how putrid the Thrashers are playing, but I choose to give them credit, they look great.

The Bad: The Atlanta Thrashers look bad. I mean real bad. Way worse than us. How on earth this team has beaten us twice already this year, and how they are contending for a playoff team is beyond me. They are literally a 2 person team. If Ilya and Hossa don’t go, they don’t go. Right now, Lehtonen is going big time, but the rest of these schlubs look like they should be playing for the Rangers….and yeah, that was an insult to our team.

The Ugly: The power play, if possible, looks to have gotten worse. How is that even humanly possible, particularly with the Thrashers having a horrendous PK, and us playing so damn good at Even Strength is well beyond my puny neurons. I am baffled at this team when they are up a man. This game should be, at least, 6-0 right now.

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When looking ahead to this season, I figured we would get a team that could just take over the game in the offensive zone, but also play stingy, nearly suffocating defense to boot, while getting stellar goaltending.

That is exactly what we got in this period. The goaltending wasn’t stellar, but I’d rather Henrik look good making 4 or 5 easy saves rather than him look spectacular making 25 saves in a period and letting in 2 goals. Shots on goal are drastically in our favor, but more importantly we have the quality to go with that quantity. BTW, how did we get the first goal? Oh yeah, goal mouth scramble with men in front and us getting the puck to the net. Strange phenomenon for us to see aye?

Ilya Kovalchuk shouldn’t have got a 5 minute majors and a game misconduct on that play. He should have got a 2 minute minor, a 5 minute major, and a suspension. That was a despicable play by Ilya, and I am really surprised at him. First he throws a high hit, with an elbow on Rozsival, then 10 seconds later dangerously boards him. If that isn’t suspension worthy, then I’m not sure what is.

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Know what is the most disheartening thing to watch as a fan of a team? A team giving up.

This is not the same thing as a team not playing hard, or a team making mistakes. This is what a team flat out doesn’t care anymore, and give up on a game. Watching the Rangers give up on a game, and possibly a season, after 40 minutes in game number 49 (or whatever) just sickens me to the core. Remember, this is after I praised the Rangers for their play in the first 2 periods.

If I was Renney, I would resign right now. Not because I blame him for this loss, but because clearly his players have no respect for him if they are going to play like that in a must have game, with plenty of time to come from behind, against an AHL team. In fact not only do I not blame Renney for this loss, but I offer praise to him for playing the 3rd line #1 minutes in that 3rd period. That trio was the only group that still played hard, and gave it their all shift in and shift out.

That, ladies and gentleman is what separates a team with Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan, Chris Drury, Scott Gomez, Martin Straka, Henrik Lundqvist, and the best 4th line center in the NHL Blair Betts from getting the #1 pick in the next NHL draft with a little over 30 games to go.

How does that not make the powers that be (Sather, I’m talking to you) want to do something to fix this mess?! As I stated in my How to fix the Rangers (see the right side for the link in case you missed it), we need to fix our #6 defenseman situation, we need to fix our coaching, and if neither of those work, we need to purge some of these old, under producing players.

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Want to know why I have been bitching about the reffing these past 2 weeks? Let’s see, Dan Girardi, shoves a player to the boards, boom 2 minutes for boarding. Chara smashes Avery to the boards….aaaaand….waiting for it….waiting for it…..nada.

Rangers played well in the 2nd, as they did in the first. They don’t have much to show for it, but the law of averages says if they keep playing well, eventually they will be rewarded………Right?!

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The Rangers threw some huge hits, the Rangers had a ton of energy, the Rangers got traffic in front of the net, the Rangers got shots through with that traffic, they played solid defensively, and despite Pierre McGuire blaming that goal on Tyutin, the responsibility falls solely on Henrik Lundqvist.

In short, that was a terrible goal. 99 times out of 100 Henrik needs to, and probably does stop that shot. It has to be deflating to a team when you play so damn well and your goalie gives up a softie. Let’s see how they react in the 2nd. If the Rangers lose this one, it’s going to be tough to rationalize keeping some of these big name players (not to mention the coach) beyond the trade deadline.

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Typically when a team plays against a bunch of individuals, the team will win. However when one individual plays out of his freaking mind, the norm doesn’t always apply. Today we saw just that. Henrik Lundqvist stole us a point, a point we really didn’t deserve sans his play.

There were a bunch of mitigating factors that added up to the Rangers getting a point in this game. The positives were the play of Scotty Gomez (not counting his assassination attempt on Michal Rozsival) and Henrik Lundqvist. Both were outstanding, both were huge reasons we won this game.

The negative side of things is much longer. Let’s start with the play of Marek Malik. Who was burned twice on the power play for goals against, and did everything in his power to give this game away, from penalties to idiotic passes, Marek really ran the gamut in this game for reasons to get kicked off the team. Let’s talk about the play during the final 10 seconds of this game that nearly lost it in OT for us. Malik should have just held the puck on that play. No Bruins were in sight, and we were a tired team at that point, we had to change and get new personnel on the ice, and by the time that happened the game would be over. I don’t know why the hell he shot it. To be fair its not his fault he turned the puck over on the shot, because his stick broke clean in half. it is his fault he turned the puck over with his decision making.

Nobody should question Maliks ability, hes got 2nd pairing ability. Its his decision making I hate, and its why my #1 priority right now is getting a reliable #6 defenseman on this damn team.

Then we have the play of Jaromir Jagr. He did not play a good game folks. Yes, he had a goal and 2 assists, but the goal was a gimme when Chara handed him the puck with nobody between Jagr and Thomas, and the 2 assists were of the secondary variety that really weren’t the reason we scored, it was the plays after his passes that were the reason we scored. So don’t look at this score sheet and call it a good game. Jagr had a ton of turnovers, and looked to be skating with a walrus (Chara?) on his back the whole damn night day. He had no legs for the bulk of this game, and really was a non factor.

Next we have the refs. I know I have been bitching about the refs for the past few games, but today might be the topping on the cake. Rangers get called for 3 penalties that were simply not penalties. Nowhere in this universe should they be penalties. In fact those 3 penalties really should have been 1 power play for. The 2 slashing calls were just puke worthy. We’re not even talking about love taps here folks, we’re talking incidental contact of near invisible proportions. Then the call on Jagr in OT had me get out of my chair screaming a steam of expletives with lots of F’s in there, and nearly breaking my TV. I could not believe they had the audacity to call that. Not only was Jagr forced into Thomas by the defenseman on that play with his positioning and leaning into Jagr, but the defenseman had his stick, clear in Jagrs midsection, ACTUALLY hooking and interfering with Jagr, which also caused Jagr to smash into Thomas. Somehow the most blatant hook Ive seen in years goes uncalled, but Jagr gets a goalie interference call there?! If I was on the bench right there, I would make a statement. You’d see stick go a-flying, and definitely an ejection.

Sure, I would have been down 2 men in the OT, but at that point, I think making the statement of:

enough is enough with this effing horrible officiating

Might be more important than the extra point. The Rangers can’t use the bad reffing as an excuse, but getting bad reffing for almost 15 straight games in a row will cause even the best of teams to lose precious points, and we are a team who do not have the buffer to be able to absorb those hits.

The Rangers did not play well defensively, they did not play particularly well offensively (yes they scored 3 goals, but there was little to no sustained offensive pressure, particularly playing against nearly the entire Boston Bruins AHL affiliate because of injuries and illness.), but they got spectacular goaltending.

Sometimes the individual can beat the team, but relying on this is what has gotten the Rangers into this mess to begin with.

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Against a team riddled with injuries and sick people, the New York Rangers have done a surprisingly good job of making themselves actually look worse than the opposition. While the Rangers have their full compliment of players, they continue to play like a team lacking the personnel to win in this league. What is it about this team that makes my head feel like it is literally splitting down the middle? Is it the constant penalties they take (to be fair, that call on Dubinsky was laughably bad)? Is it the horrific play of their captain that is leading them astray? I don’t know, but this is getting ridiculous at this point. This team doesn’t look like a playoff team, honestly they haven’t looked like one since the game against the Leafs many moons ago. Right now they look like a lottery team, and honestly, I still think they may end up being just that when all is said and done.

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I thought the Rangers played pretty well in that period. They got traffic in front of the net, they got shots on goal, but what they didnt do often enough was combine the 2. When the traffic was there, the shots weren’t. When the shots were there, the traffic wasn’t. Time to synchronize your watches everyone, and get on the same page.

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What more can you say but…wow…

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