My dad just died. I wont be back for a while.
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Click Here For My Midseason Report Card. |
My dad just died. I wont be back for a while.
I screamed in joy when Dawes scored. I jumped up and shouted for a few minutes when Jagr scored, and yet I feel like we left a point on the table tonight. Yes, Vally played a nice game. He did what you expect a backup goalie to do, keep you in the game. However, is he the guy who should have been in there tonight? In my opinion, no. Henrik has been well rested, with very little back to back work needing to be done. The Rangers were just 4 points out of first place with a chance to get within 2 minuscule points after the Devils lost yet again to a New York team (they have what…1 win against the Rangers and Islanders combined this year? Ouch.). With all this in mind, it is the coaches responsibility to make sure the Rangers have the best chance to gain this precious ground with such a small period of time remaining. Especially down your best penalty killer and best defensive forward (Betts) you need to have your best goalie in there. Does Briere score the wrap around with Henrik in net? In my opinion, no, because Henrik gets to that post leg first, not stick first. Does Henrik give up the 2 shootout goals? Who knows, but I wish I had the option to know that answer.
Look, its not all bad, I mean, watching a team come back from the dead with a small amount of time to go was truly awe inspiring, and watching a Philly team that looks sure for a 4 and out in the playoffs makes me want that #1 seed that much more. But it was not meant to be.
Give a ton of credit to Christian Backman. Even after most of us gave up on him, myself included, hes steadily improved game in and game out. Yes, he still is scared to take a hit to make a play. Yes, he still turns the puck over at an alarming rate, but he definitely has offensive instincts, and may be the key to snapping us out of this horrific Power Play funk. Speaking of which….ouch, did we even get a shot on goal during our power plays? I mean, my God can a PP look worse than ours does right now? Not only are they not scoring, they arent even setting up in the offensive zone! Something needs to be done, because if we had even a halfway decent power play…like ranked 10th or so, we would be in first place right now, hands down. But our 24th ranked PP or whatever the hell it is now, is just dragging this team down. At this point just decline the PP and play even strength, we seem to be playing much better there.
The Gomez injury doesnt concern me. Reason being is it didn’t look all that serious to me. As an expert in slamming into the boards after losing your balance, I can say I have seen, and had worse spills than that. He’ll be fine.
Keep it going, keep picking up points. With the Devils having a game in hand, we are only 3 back of them, and with them playing the Pens twice, we have a chance to leapfrog one, or both of those teams pretty soon. Just gotta keep winning.
Rangers look absolutely confused about what to do with the puck once they get it out of their own zone. They look pretty good defensively, and are playing hard, but once they get the puck and transition, its like their brains just stop working and they don’t know what to do.
Its very aggravating. This isnt like the Devils game, this is the Rangers beating themselves.
With Betts already out for 2-3 weeks now with some sort of foot issue, and Scott Gomez being taken away to the xray machine, things do not look good for the Rangers up the middle. The first period was just sloppy all over for the Rangers, particularly on the powerplay. And I mean sloppy as in pucks bouncing all over the damn place rather than sloppy/lazy. Nothing seemed to bounce the Rangers way in that period. Lets hope the zamboni does a better job in between periods.
Ahhhhh, what is there to even say about this game? The Rangers played a Devils team that played about as perfect a game as you possibly can (within their system), and came out on top. Once again Captain Clutch Chris Drury earns his paycheck with a huge late goal to earn the Rangers 50% of their points in this one.
Drury also won a key faceoff late in the game as well, killed penalties, played solid D, and does everything you ask of the guy. As much as I have bitched and moaned about Drury and Gomez’s contracts, both are playing superbly within our system, and have been welcome additions to this team, even if they are being grossly overpaid.
I have no complaints whatsoever. Every player came to play, every player did his job, every single guy did what it took to keep this team in the game. When the attack came the other way, the forwards were back, when the Devils got by the forwards, the defenseman were back. When they got by the defenseman Henrik was there. They just played a perfect, patient game.
I know I give Tom Renney more crap than anyone else out there, but this game reeks of his personality. Cool, calm, collected, and above all, patient and unflappable. He may annoy the crap out of me by not kicking the guys in the ass when they need it, but in games like this, where the team is playing great, he is excellent at keeping it going, and not letting them panic late in the game. Our record when leading in the 3rd speaks volumes to that fact.
Ryan Callahan should have been the first star, even if we lost. The guy has been nothing short of spectacular for the past 10 games or so.
That’s all for now, I am emotionally spent right now, if this wasn’t playoff hockey to you, then youve got a couple of screws loose.
Rangers had a few chances, but the Devils really are playing quite well, even Uncle Daddy. Not much else to say, its a defensive game with very little action.
You saw it in High Definition for about half the period (was anyone elses HD not working to start the game?). The Rangers ran into a Devils buzz saw in that first. They played a damn near perfect period. But let’s see them keep it up. Rangers havent tested Uncle Daddy much at all sans Straka breakaway. They need to work a lot harder at charging the net. Too much stuff on the perimeter right now.
For some reason I thought I did the writeup already, but apparently i was so engrossed in talking to my fellow Ranger fans on the boards that it totally slipped my mind that I haven’t done it yet.
Oops.
Anyway, after a mediocre first and a supremely dreadful second, the Rangers picked up their play BIG TIME in the 3rd. Looking very much like a team only 2 games removed from the longest point getting streak (if my memory serves me right) this year. They were poised in all three zones. They didn’t make stupid turnovers, their passes were crisp, and weren’t forced as much, and they helped their keeper ten fold more than in the previous 2 periods. That is definitely a huge positive.
The thing is though, its hard to really gauge what kind of a win this was. The reason being is that the Penguins were just awful. They were almost as bad as we were against the Lightning, except their goalie sucked while ours kept us in the game. Conklin was putrid, the Penguins defense was laughable, and the forwards were easily rattled after the Rangers applied some strong hits to them. This was not a game where you can say, WE WON! At least not 100%. This was as much about the Penguins losing the game as it was us winning.
Summary? Don’t read too much into this win.
New Jersey tomorrow. Nothing brings out the best in this team like watching the swamp rats and Uncle Daddy come to town. I expect a big time effort from start to finish, with a much sharper style of play. The Rangers should easily beat the Devils because not only have we manhandled them for a long while now, but we were doing so without even playing at our peak. Right now the Rangers are not too far removed from being a dominating team. If they can recapture that, not even a red hot Uncle Daddy should stop us……In theory that is.
The only, and I mean only difference between this game and the Tampa Bay game, is that we are actually skating hard in this one.
Our passes are sloppy, and into high traffic areas. We arent getting the puck deep consistently, we have little to no sustained offensive zone pressure outside of idiotic turnovers by the Penguins. We are turning the puck over at an alarming rate, and outside of Malik and Rozsival, our defenseman look like cabbage patch kids with skates. We look just terrible out there.
Lets face it. If the pens werent playing like dog crap themselves we would be blown out of the water right now. How we are leading right now is beyond me. This is most definitely a game we should not be winning.
We played very very well for the bulk of that period, but it really frightens me. Why? Because we played the Penguins game. I saw way too much up and down hockey for my taste. The Penguins got quite a few very high quality chances off the rush, and while that is bound to happen with a team that plays the style of hockey they do, you need to minimize it to 8 or 9 a game tops (high quality chances off the rush that is). They got at least half that amount in the first period alone. Rangers need to tighten up, and the defenseman need to stay back a bit more. I saw Malik, Backman, and Staal all go deep as a 4th man in during the first, without any recognition of who the opponent is. You do not, I repeat, do not send 4 men deep against the Penguins. You can still utilize the defenseman by passing it back to the point for shots, but you don’t want to have only 1 person back to defend against the rush with that many highly skilled fast players on the ice. It is suicide.
It might as well be 0-0 at this point, because 2-0 means nothing at all against these guys.