Well, the NYRangersCast crew stepped out of the veil of the internet and showed their mugs on their site. I figured, you know what, it probably is time to show you guys who I am. I really had to think long and hard about this, because I do enjoy being anonymous, but…what the hell, it’s not like you guys will be traveling down to Atlanta to kick my butts after another round of Strudwick killing. So here goes. There is kind of a story behind this. Many years ago I made a bet about the Rangers making the playoffs (they of course didn’t). The terms of the bet were that if the Rangers missed the playoffs I would go to a destination of my friends choice, get in front of the crowd, and sing. Well, halfway through I almost got booed off the stage. But you know, I persevered, and that’s what matters in the end isn’t it? Anyway, I don’t want to subject everyone to this terrible ordeal, so if you REALLY want to see what I look like, click this link. Warning, this is not for the faint of heart.

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I can’t do a writeup tonight. Henrik Lundqvists inconsistency continues to anger me. The guy is garbage, and I can’t stand watching him anymore.

/sarcasm

Honestly though, I have to be at the airport in 6 hours to drop my mom off for a flight, so I need to get to sleep. I’ll post something tomorrow when I get a minute.

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Right now the Rangers are leading 2-1. If 5 of their shots were even a millimeter to the inside of the net, they are up 7-1. Talk about bad luck, Rangers have no business being in this close of a game. Right now I blame Sean Avery. His gimme goal on the awesome pass by Jagr really sticks out. That was a Patrick Stefanesque of a miss.

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When watching Brendan Shanahan score the first goal of the game, the only thing I could do was get up and shout “CHERRY PICKER!”. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a player in Ranger blue not even try to skate back and play defense, wait near the blueline, and pick up the puck and score. Know when the last time I remember seeing that? 2 years ago when Jaromir Jagr scored 54 goals, many of which with him staying at the blueline letting the players around him play defense. Jaromir has become a much more responsible player (wow, imagine me of all people saying that) by actively skating back and playing defense.

Speaking of Jagr, the guy has just been on fire of late. I don’t know if he has any points in the last few to show for it, but hes been the best forward on the ice, by a wide margin for the Rangers.

How did Drury, Avery, and Jagr not score on their plays in that period? It should definitely be 5-0 right now. I’m actually annoyed the score isn’t a bit wider. We should have already put this one away.

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I was lucky enough to catch this mornings Dynamo-Omsk game. Omsk won a very dramatic game. They were trailing 2-1 with under 5 minutes to go, and a point shot from Omsk found its way in (I couldnt tell if it was deflected because my feed started to get choppy during the replay). Then with under a minute to go in the overtime session Alexei Cherepanov dumped the puck in skated all out, retrieved the puck from the Dynamo player, and delivered a perfect pass to set up the game winning goal. It was a fantastic play.

This is probably the 5th or 6th time I am seeing Alexei Cherepanov this season, most of which was in the World Juniors, and the Super Series. Usually I try to see a player 5 or 6 times before making semi formed opinions of a player. Heres what I have seen regarding Alexei…

He has superb vision. Think Peter Forsberg when he has the puck. He seems to know exactly who the puck should go to, whether that be he himself keeping the puck, or putting it to the point. His ability to locate where the proper place to put the puck to continue the play is very important. Often times a young player needs to develop this particular skill, especially when coming from a different country, but Cherepanov has it in spades. His hockey intelligence, in that way, is just off the charts. He is a very smart guy with and without the puck. He knows who to pick up when backchecking, he knows where to go to create separation.

His hands are elite. He doesn’t seem to lose the puck while trying to make plays like Staal, Dubinsky, etc do from time to time. In that way he is very much “Russian”. The European puck control skills are legendary, and he has them as well.

What he doesn’t do, is what all the scouts say he doesn’t do, and that is skate hard, and give maximum effort shift in and shift out. Today I saw him skate flat out with max effort just twice, once was towards the end of the second when there was a giveaway (not by him) and he needed to cover up, and the other was when he assisted on the game winning goal. Other than that, he is a glider, moreso than any Ranger forward currently with the team. He glides more than Jagr, he glides more than Nylander used to glide. He glides, he glides, then, he glides some more. Why? I have no idea, perhaps his conditioning is terrible and he cant skate all out. Perhaps the scouts were correct, and he is just flat out lazy, or perhaps he is conserving his energy by not skating hard all the time, and only skating hard when the plays are crucial. I don’t honestly know, but it concerns me deeply. This kid has the ability to be a superstar in the NHL right now. Im talking 30 goals, 70-80 assists (I definitely think he is a better playmaker than goal scorer), if he busted his ass all the time like, Straka, for example. But with his effort level as it has been from what I have seen, I can see him scoring 10-15 goals, and putting up 30-40 assists. A 50% dropoff just based on effort. Again, these are numbers im just pulling out of my ass, but it’s how I sort of read into this.

I want to say I could be totally wrong on this effort thing. The RSL is notoriously defensive, and this game was no exception. It was like watching a Devils VS Devils game out there, in that there were very few good chances. Maybe Cherepanov will light up the NHL where there is definitely more offensive opportunity. Keep this in mind. Alexander Ovechkin, in his first 2 years scored a combined 10 goals and 9 assists. In Alexei Cherepanovs first 2 years he has scored 33 goals, and 24 assists. Clearly he is doing something correct to have exactly triple the production Alexander the Great had during the same time period (granted Cherepanov played in 32 more games). In fact, during his 4 seasons played in the RSL, Ovechkins best year, is still not as good as Alexei Cherepanovs worst year.

The game itself was quite dull to watch sans late minute heroics. Omsk took a penalty after regulation and the Omsk Goalie stood on his head to bail the team out from the 4 on 3 powerplay. Cherepanov then did his thing with less than a minute to go. Cherepanov has a goal and a game winning assist in the series.

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There are a few things we need to talk about following this loss. But they all start with this. We should have won this in regulation. Our offense played well enough to score enough goals to win, and our defense was more than adequate only giving up 18 shots, outside of Backman who was, again, terrible.

So why did we lose? See the title.

What the hell was Tom Renney thinking. Can anyone tell me? 6 rounds deep and Ryan Callahan, Chris Drury, and Sean Avery, 3 of our hottest goal scorers, have not shot, yet Michal Rozsival, and Martin Straka, neither of which have been scoring goals with any sort of regularity lately did shoot?! Way to just give up on a point Tommy. I think Renney has done a masterful job as of late in doing things that make sense, even if they don’t always work. But this is another one of those, I don’t get it, moves by Tom Terrific. Also, where the hell was Jaromir Jagr? The guy was all over the ice in regulation, dominating shift in and shift out, yet he doesn’t shoot at all?! If he asked out, I am going to be one unhappy camper.

Next is Henrik Lundqvist. Look, I am not going to blame him on the first or the third goals. Neither was his fault, but the 1 goal he did let in, and the multiple posts (2…3?), along with some very shaky saves all game long makes me quite unhappy. This isn’t like the Montreal game where he was just hung out to dry. His D, for the most part, played quite well in front of him, he on the other hand, did not play well in the net. You need to also look at the saves he does make and ask yourself is this a guy who is sharp. He was not.

That is it, that is why we lost. Dubiliwhatever was good enough to win, the Islanders, as always, worked their asses off, and we gave away a point we should have had. 7-0-3 in our last 10, but a very sour tasting 1 point for me tonight.

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Heres what I want to know. Why cant these refs find the balance between calling every single ticky tacky little thing, and a game like this where they are calling absolutely nothing? There have been some legit penalties that are being missed on both sides. Its really starting to piss me off.

Did you notice on the second goal how Avery turned the puck over to Berard? Could it be because Berard just grabbed Averys stick, lifted it up, and skated away with the puck. Last time I checked, holding the stick was a penalty.

And yeah, Henrik Lundqvist has not been sharp in this one. The second goal was just pathetic. You HAVE to stop that Henrik, that is an inexcusable goal. The first and the 3rd are debatable, since both came in off of deflections right in front of him, but the difference in this game is 1 bad goal.

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We played damn well in that period. Sometimes you don’t always get the results. Trailing 1-0 off of a fluke goal definitely qualifies us for that. But, I’m not worried, the post can only save Dublwhatever only so many times, and the way the first line is flying out there, its only a matter of time before they score.

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Defenseman pinched and forwards didnt rotate back to cover. Forwards came back but defenseman took incorrect angles. Forwards came back, defenseman took correct angles, plays were made, then the team would turn the puck right back over.

This was a train wreck of a game, burn the friggin tape and forget it ever happened. Just take the 2 points and run like crazy.

Marc Staal had perhaps his worst game in a Ranger uniform by a country mile. He was just putrid out there. Turnovers, misreads, poorly timed pinches, bad passes, just nothing was working for him. I wonder how much of it has to do with him wearing down. Last year he played a full year and a full playoff schedule in the OHL averaging something like 35 minutes a game. But I’ll bet you the 16-22 minutes he plays now are twice as taxing as the 35 minutes he played in the OHL. His total games played last year was 74. This year hes already up to 64, with a long way to go. Maybe it would be a good time to sit him a game or 2 when Mara comes back, just to help him recuperate. Who knows, maybe I am way off base with this. I guess we will see, if his game further deteriorates, then we know why. If he comes back around, then it was probably a combination of just having a few bad games, and adjusting to new defensive partners every few games.

On a total side note, I just saw this picture on the HFBoards and had to post it for you guys…

I said it in the offseason, Briere just doesn’t seem to be the kind of player that would thrive in Philly, his soft style won’t go over well with those fans for long. I think he would have been better suited for Montreal, Carolina, or Tampa Bay. Hindsight is of course 20/20 in this situation.

Getting back to the game, I don’t blame Henrik at all for the first 3 goals. The 3rd one was definitely saveable (unlike the first 2), but it was also on a breakaway, where were the defenseman?!

Burn the damn tape, and pretend this game never happened, we just showed up against the Flyers and got 2 points. That’s all I want to remember about todays game.

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Henrik Lundqvist played a good first period, but I am glad he got pulled. Not because of anything he did, but because of the terrible way in which the team defended in front of him. Tom Renney was banking on the team tightening up with Vally in net, and there was a noticeable difference in the quality of shots that Vally faced versus what Henrik saw. Very few high quality scoring chances (I counted 2 for Vally, but 6 or 7 for Henrik), and not many odd man rushes of the breakaway or 2 on 1 variety (none actually that I can remember).

Smart move by Tom.

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