That’s all there is to it. Treat every game like its the most important game ever. Forget about what you have done in the past, forget about the daunting task ahead of you. Just win every game you can. Rangers did that today with a combination of fantastic play, and terrible goaltending in a game that was never in doubt after the first 10 seconds. Rangers have to keep playing like this. Hard, strong, aggressive, proactive, and most of all CONSISTENT. You can’t come out flat against one of the better teams in the NHL, the Sharks, tomorrow. You need to be even better than you were today, because their goalie isnt going to give up those kinds of softies.

The story of today, and really of the past month and a half now, has been the play of Brandon Dubinsky. I left an email for Steve Gelbs at the NYRangersCast a few weeks ago during one of our many losing streaks, saying how amazing Dubi has been, and really, nothing has changed since then. Hes going straight to the net, hes using his weird combination of size and speed to blow by opponents, but still fight off checks, and is making things happen. Really, I think this may be a case of Brandon Dubinsky being put with Jagr to elevate Jagrs game, as opposed to what usually happens where a vet is put with a kid to elevate his game instead.

I also thought Dawes played a very strong game. Though he only got an assist today, he was very active with the body, and very responsible defensively. Twice I caught him going back to cover for a pinching defenseman, those are the kinds of plays you need from your wingers.

But of course there were 2 negative in this game, and I would be remiss to not at least mention them. Henrik Lundqvist, despite making 29 saves on 30 shots, gave up a pretty soft goal. In the final analysis it is meaningless, but I would have felt a whole lot better about this game if he didn’t do that. I am one of his most ardent supporters, and definitely am in favor of the contract the Rangers gave to him, but his detractors are right about one thing now, he needs to get his ass on the ice and earn that money. While he did make a few difficult saves point blank, he should have had that goal, and it really bugs me that he didn’t. The other thing which is a negative, and which continues to be a negative since day 1, is our powerplay. We had a few chances, but we just couldn’t bury them. Shooting high, shooting wide, or just not playing shooting. Pucks need to start going into the net when you are a man up, or you will start to lose games you should have won just because of that. And while that excuse (we played well enough to win) was comforting to me early in the year, right now it means jack. Win, score, play defense.

Git

R

Dun!

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While the scoring in that period was only 1-0, the Rangers certainly kept their level of play at a very high level, except this time they did a lot of their best work in their own zone and in the neutral zone, keeping Buffalo to a few shots here and there, but nothing particularly difficult for Henrik that was actually on goal.

Just keep it going, how awesome would it be for Henrik to get a shutout in his first game since signing the huge contract?

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Yes, I realize that Ryan Miller was absolutely terrible in that period, giving up 2 rather soft goals. But the first 2 goals were legit goals. So you shouldn’t be surprised when after Callahan scored the Rangers 2nd goal of the period/game I stood up and screamed, quite angrily at the TV, “where the !*$? has that been before?!” Yeah, I wasn’t happy at our success…well, I think it would be more accurate to say our success in this game made me angry at our lack of success in previous games.

It’s a simple concept. Get the puck to the net, get men in front. How was Dubinskys goal scored? He took the puck right to the net. How was Averys goal scored? Dubinsky took the puck right to the net, and Avery netted him an easy rebounder. How was Callahans goal scored? Drury passes it to Straka right in front of the net, Straka shoots, there is a scramble in front, and Callahan scores in the crease. Gee, what a surprise. You do the fundamentals, you score goals, and when youre as talented as this team is, if you execute those fundamentals, your superior talent can win you games. If you don’t do the fundamentals, I don’t care how talented you are, you won’t win many games.

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