What else is there to say? Outside of Henrik, this team was awful. Putrid. Pathetic. Despicable. Take your choice of any number of thesaurus friendly words.

Worst game of the season. Period. They didn’t even try.

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It doesn’t get uglier than that. This was, bar none, the worst period the Rangers have played all year. Worse than the 3rd against Montreal, worse than anything they have done ever before. Just….Awful.

I cant say much more. I want to throw up right now. Without Henrik we would be done 7 or 8 to nothing.

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Joe Michelletti said it best. The Rangers should be happy to get out of the first tied at 0, because they were simply awful out there. How many breakaways did the Lightning have? 3? In one period?! DISGUSTING. You won’t beat an upper level team playing the way we did here in the first. Only because of Henrik, and some luck are we tied right now. Tom better be tearing this team a new one, because travel time and back to backs is no excuse. This is damn near playoff hockey, every game is crucial. If you want any chance at winning the division, you have to beat a last place team like the Lightning.

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They weren’t going to win out the schedule folks. A loss was just bound to happen. The thing I am happy about, is they lost a game they could have easily won. They did play hard, they got plenty of chances, they were pretty strong in their zone (Backman…ugh), they pressured the puck in the neutral zone, they didnt try too many long passes, they skated hard, and they werent dumb out there.

I don’t ask for much more than that. Play hard, play smart, and if you lose because of a hot goalie, you can hold your head up high. At least thats how I feel.

Brendan Shanahan should have had a bunch of goals in this one. Prime scoring positions to unleash that wicked shot of his, and nothing to show. Not to mention Chris Drury who had the puck on his stick with under a minute to go in the slot. How many times does he not score there? Not too often.

Let’s just face it, Vokoun stood on his head. He was superb, making so many saves that were very difficult look ordinary, and still having the energy to make several stupendous saves to boot. He was good. Real good. As was Henrik, outside of one really soft goal. Still though, you do have to wonder how come when he trapped the puck a bit on that play he didn’t get the quick whistle, whereas Vokoun was helped with 2 hyper quick whistles in the middle of the crease scrambles. Im not using that as an excuse, just saying that it annoyed me is all.

On the positive side of things, Staal putting Horton to the ice was impressive. The kid can, and should do that a whole lot more than he currently does. Hes got an above average to way above average stick right now. Add in a more aggressive physical game, and you have your #1 defenseman we all know he can be.

After all is said and done, i blame you, the fans for this loss. How anyone could vote for A or B in tonights stupid band thing is beyond me. Its C, neither, or D give me trivia and turn this other stupid crap off. Someone tell me, when did watching athletes play video games become entertaining tv? Yuck

I would go right back out there with the same lineup tomorrow. Henrik, the entire team, everyone exactly the same. Even Backman (because we don’t have a better, healthy option).

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Despite the Rangers doing some great things in that period. Despite Henrik making several tremendous saves. That goal he gave up was……well…theres no other way to say it…..Yucky.

You have to stop wrist shots from the point that dont deflect that stay low to the ground. Henriks knees had a bit of separation and thats why the puck went in. Thats a mechanical screw up there by Henrik. Youre taught to cover the bottom of the ice on low wrist shots like that, and he did exactly that, except he left a gap….and pucks have a nasty way if finding those gaps. Henrik must be kicking himself after that one.

Still though…2-2 after 2 against a red hot Panthers team in their building with their power play? I’ll take it.

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With the exception of one Nigel Dawes play, the Rangers looked to have an excellent first period. Nigel was a little lackadaisical while covering his man on the Panthers goal, but other than that the Rangers were very smart and patient. They didn’t appear to try to do too much, and in the one case where they did, Girardi and Tyutin both raced back and made the defensive play.

Raise your hand if you were surprised that McCreary was reffing tonights game. Looks like he got the memo from the NHL, and seems to, so far, be calling a fairly good game. 1 penalty missed per side (hook on Jagr, and I believe it was either Callahan or Drury who was tripped early in the game), but as long as its equal, im ok with it.

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They say , To err is human, but forgiveness is divine. They also say, fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice shame on me (or if you are our president…we won’t get fooled again). Regardless, I think Ive had enough of Bill McCrearys bull. It seems every single time the guy is reffing games by us, we get some pretty soft calls against us, and don’t get anything back in return. A call on Nigel Dawes that baffles the mind. A call on Marc Staal that is worse than a “ticky tacky” call. A call on Fredrick Sjostrom that…well…was despicable. The good news is the Rangers overcame a ridiculously tilted game to pick up yet another win to continue their streak of no regulation losses to 13 games (10-0-3 as I am sure you know by now). The bad news is you can bet your ass McCreary is going to be on the playoff officiating roster, and if we have to play any games with him, its going to be tough games to win.

You know the reffing must be bad when the Rangers are on an incredible hot streak, and yet all the message boards are filled with complaints on the reffing. And I whole heartedly agree. For the most part the reffing has been awful this year. Awful yes, but generally not one sided. The reffing tends to be terrible for both teams where both teams either get shafted out of calls, or both teams take penalties that arent penalties. But I have noticed a marked increase in my complaints of one sided reffing when McCreary is the ref, and this is no difference. Not only did he call 3 ridiculous calls on us, but he missed a trip on Callahan, a trip on Gomez and a pretty vicious elbow to the face of Sean Avery (though he did, obviously, manage to catch Seans retaliatory shove to Vaneks face, which was a good call).

The game itself was quite one sided in my personal opinion. The power plays made it seem a bit more even than it was, but the Rangers seemed to control the play for the most part, but were a little sloppy with the puck, and their execution inside the offensive zone. Too many times they passed it to vacated areas, or simply turned it over without getting a quality chance on goal. The Rangers play has deteriorated a bit in the past 4 games, but we are still winning. I dont know if thats a good thing, or a bad. As I have mentioned before, we tend to go in cycles, where we play great, then start to get cocky, and overconfident, and then start “getting away with mistakes”, and when you win while getting away with mistakes, those mistakes become habits. Those habits lead to losing streaks, and a losing streak at this time of the year can carry right back into the playoffs.

It resides with Tom Renney to correct the flaws that have crept up (turnovers in the neutral zone really stands out, as does the tendancy to let defenseman get in behind the play a bit too often). I have given the coach a lot of crap this year, but he has managed to turn the ship around in a huge way, so I will trust that he sees what is pretty clear to most of us, the Rangers are not playing that sharp right now, despite the winning streak. At the very least, they aren’t playing at their best, which definitely should bring a smile to your face, if the best is yet to come.

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I’m not one of those guys who minds saying I told you so. Obviously by being a douchebag like that, I get a lot of I told you so’s back my way. I accept that reaction back the next time I am wrong (a pretty common occurrence). With all that said…

On the message boards there were about 50,000 threads about how awful Lundqvist has been. Those threads are OK with me. Why? Because the numbers actually kind of support that mentality. The threads I have a problem with are the ones saying ridiculous things like benching him for Vally, or never should have signed him, or even going as far as saying we should trade him away. There is nothing wrong with critiquing a players performance like the guys at the NYRangersCast do, but I have a serious problem with knee jerk stupidity. This isn’t some flash in the pan folks. This isn’t some kid who came out of nowhere and was great for a year and fell off the planet. This is a guy who dominated the SEL when NHLers were playing there, a guy who won a gold medal, a guy who is only the 2nd player in NHL history to win 30 games in his first 3 years, and a guy whose been nominated for the Vezina in each of his first 2 years. That is not the kind of guy you say ridiculously stupid things about.

Critique him on a game by game basis, call him out for letting in a soft goal here and there, or for not keeping his team in it by not being mentally in it, or whatever you want to say about the way he is playing, but at least keep it within the realm of sanity. I am not even conceding that he has been bad this year (I think the defense in front of him has been pathetic for a lot of the middle of this year), but I can understand why you would be annoyed at some of his startlingly high numbers. Be concerned, don’t give up on the guy. Otherwise you might have to see him putting up a ridiculous performance like todays in another uniform, because despite what some of you think, I have to believe if Henrik made it to the offseason without a contract a GM would have easily given him a 7….8….9 million per year contract. Young goalies with his kind of ability don’t grow on trees, and if I were a GM I probably would do just that, and I am dead set against giving offer sheets under most circumstances. Henrik, like Crosby, like Ovechkin would fall in the exception category.

That’s all I have to say on this one.

I forgot to mention, there will be no between period thoughts tomorrow. I will be watching the game on DVR probably starting around 11:00 and ending at about 1:00, then ill do a post game wrap. But no posts till then. This will be the norm as my league has started up and we have games on Mondays.

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From a goaltending point of view, the 2nd was really enjoyable to watch. Both goalies looked exceptional, particularly Lundqvist who didn’t have to face as many shots, but probably had the more difficult shots to face. The Rangers definitely picked up their play in that period, but they have a long way to go before they reach the level they were playing at in just the last game. Taking penalties to end periods isn’t a smart way of doing that, it really kills the momentum. Really not much more to say. I apologize for not being particularly insightful, but for the most part, this is boring, crap hockey.

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No legs, no legs, no legs. Rangers had no speed at all in the first. Its not hard to figure out why, but it is annoying nonetheless.

Have I said it often enough? I hate afternoon games….in every sport. It’s just so unnatural.

Give credit to the Bruins. No Thomas, no Chara, and they are still buzzing around like annoying little gnats. One random thought I had in that first period…this looks like the kind of game where the Rangers are going to give up a short handed goal. Hopefully I am wrong.

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