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.

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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.

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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.

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