Watching 2 girls, 1 cup, would have been more enjoyable than this abomination tonight.
That’s all I gotta say.
Watching 2 girls, 1 cup, would have been more enjoyable than this abomination tonight.
That’s all I gotta say.
Kreider: Was utterly dominating when out there on the ice, his linemates are almost holding him back, hes setting them up for glorious scoring opportunities, hes generating chances, and they cant cash in on passes/rebounds. Is extremely fast, like Marian Gaborik fast. On one memorable play Kreider, who plays left wing, skated right past his linemate, the right winger, to beat everyone to a puck on the right side. Kreider was literally skating twice as fast as anyone on the ice. Guy has unreal acceleration. Of all our prospects he has got to have the highest ceiling as he is a very unique combination of size, skill, speed, and acceleration with a rock solid work ethic.
Stepan: A+ player, plays a well rounded game in all 3 zones, never sacrifices defense for offense, reads the play extremely well, is unbelievable in his hockey IQ…easily team USA’s most intelligent player on the ice.
Bourque: Very disappointing, lacks strength so he is easily pushed off the puck, and his speed was neutralized by the defenseman constantly pushing him outside and taking him into the boards. I was expecting a lot more than that for him. I think he actually may be hurting Jordan Schroeder, who has taken a lot of heat for his poor play.
Horak: Almost unnoticeable out there. Kinda runs around like a chicken with his head cut off. His 1 goal was a tap in on a beautiful pass off a 2 on 1 rush, he drove the net and scored after his linemate threaded the needle with a saucer pass right on his tape. Horak has good speed and size, and has some offensive instincts. Of all the prospects I’ve seen, he looks the “youngest”..ie, gets rattled by nerves. Hes trying to do way too much by himself and is accomplishing nothing by that.
First, let’s do the Team Slovakia VS Team USA thoughts…
Of the 3 best players on the ice tonight, 2 of them were Rangers. At least IMHO. I thought the 3 best players on the ice were Stepan, Carlson, and Kreider, in that order. Lashoff was also outstanding.
Stepan stood out as CLEARLY the best player on the ice. Hockey IQ, vision, patience, reading the play, all off the charts. His goal(s?) was a good shot that tipped in off the goalies glove and went into the net, he was going to his left (goalie to his right) and shot it back the other way catching the goalie moving laterally.
Heres the thing though, Stepan was engaged in all 3 zones, he was strong with his puck support all over the ice, he back checked, he played a stingy defensive game, and when he had the puck stuff happened.
I thought Kreider played an outstanding game as well, I believe he only got credit for 1 assist, but he should have had 2, as he made the play on the board to dig th epuck out which Morin eventually took and put home. I thought Kreider playing a superb game in his own zone, the announcers were absolutely gushing over him, mentioning his name repeatedly as a guy who plays a strong defensive game…and he still put up 1 point, and probably should have had 2 based on the IIHF scorers, and really should have had 3 points as he set up Carlson for a gimme goal that he couldnt put in the net (literally 100% open net, and he slid it right into the goalie…he was falling down though.)
On Ryan Bourque I was much less impressed. He made a few nice passes here and there, but his lack of size was really apparent, a few times I almost felt sorry for the kid because he just looked so puny compared to the other players around him. For his supposed tenacity and skill, I thought I would have seen more, especially playing with Schroeder who will probably break the all time points record for team USA in the next few games.
with regards to team usa, I didnt really care for their lines, i think they are trying to balance the lines out, but really none of the 3 lines looked particularly dominating, it just seemed to me certain players had stand out games, rather than certain lines. The passing wasnt all that creative, they played a pretty…i guess you could say “stiff” game, everything seemed so robotic out there. I REALLY enjoyed what their 4th line brought out on the ice though, those 3 played with a crapload of energy and fire.
I think the chemistry on team USA was pretty lacking out there..if it were me, id put Kristo Kreider and Stepan together…they seem like such a natural fit.
also Jeremy Morin made a crap load of mistakes. i forget who on here was hammering how awesome the kid is, but he has zero defensive game whatsoever, literally nonexistant….one of the Thrashers mods/admins who I know in R/L told me about it in a game we were playing in, but I didnt really notice it till I looked for him. Kid oozes offensive instincts with magical hands, and you know hes going to put up points, but hes going to get killed in the NHL if he plays that kind of a nonexistant 2-way game…I think that’s also what impressed me about Kreider is that he had to be so defensively conscious out there playing with Morin.
Now, on to the Rangers – Islanders Game. Honestly, I thought the Rangers played their best game of this little recent outburst they had. I thought we got some nice scoring chances, and just met up with a hot goalie. I don’t want to make this game up to be anything more than just that. Their goalie stole them 2 points they didn’t really deserve. It happens, but we still got 1 point out of it, and have gotten 9 out of a possible 10 points in the last 5 games. Not exactly terrible numbers. Move on, and forget about it.
Yesterday I was really giving it some thought. Why are the Rangers not performing (by and large) like I expected them. I picked them to be a top 5 team because of their combination of great coaching, great goaltending, youth, and goal scoring. I figured they wouldn’t be as good as the Penguins and Capitals of the NHL, but after the elite top teams, they should be among the best of the rest. So far, they are barely hanging on to the final playoff spot, and only because of their current 4 game winning streak against what we would generally agree has been inferior opposition.
The conclusion I came to was a combination of Glen Sather, Talent, John Tortorella, and TOI.
I know, that’s a pretty strange combination of factors, but hear me out.
How would you define the Rangers team when this season was set to start? To me, I would consider it a team with 1 superstar forward, and a bunch of 2nd and 3rd line players that could make it fun to roll out line after line after line of guys who could score goals. There is talent here, but the problem is, that’s not really how our coach…well…coaches. John Tortorellas mantra forever has been to play your best players. He likes to ride his horses and have them win his team some games. The problem is, the Rangers have 2 horses, 1 in net, and Gaborik. Other than that, we have a bunch of really nice players that can come in waves, but need regular shifts to get into the flow of the game.
From John Tortorellas perspective, the ideal team would have a MINIMUM of 3 superstar forwards, preferably 4. 2 very promising young kids who can play with said superstars, a competent defense, a 3rd line that can bring energy, and a 4th line that can pound the shit out of the opposition, with either their bodies, or their fists. You’d want to see something like…
and then on D you’d go young with
Staal Girardi
Gilroy Del Zotto
Rozsival Sauer
Lundqvist
Whoever
(in case you were wondering, yes this works, and you have 4+ million dollars to add some backup players, and give the raises to Staal, Del Zotto, etc.
* Ilya Kovalchuk ($7.500m) / Marian Gaborik ($7.500m) / * Marian Hossa ($7.000m)
Ryan Callahan ($2.300m) / * Chris Higgins ($2.250m) / Sean Avery ($1.938m)
Brandon Dubinsky ($1.850m) / * Vaclav Prospal ($1.150m) / Artem Anisimov ($0.822m)
* Blair Betts ($0.750m) / * Fighter ($0.750m) / * Dane Byers ($0.500m)
DEFENSEMEN
Michal Rozsival ($5.000m) / Matt Gilroy ($1.750m)
* Daniel Girardi ($1.550m) / Michael Del Zotto ($1.087m)
* Mike Sauer ($0.846m) / * Marc Staal ($0.826m)
GOALTENDERS
Henrik Lundqvist ($6.875m) / Chad Johnson ($0.850m)
CAPGEEK.COM TOTALS
ROSTER: 20; PAYROLL: $53.094m; CAP ROOM: $4.089m BONUSES: $0.383m )
Basically you’d have your top 2 lines average somewhere in the 21-23 minute range, your 3rd line get about 12-14 minutes, and your 4th line get whatever is left over, maybe like 2-3 minutes. The theory here is that for about 60% of the game you have at least 1 or 2 superstars on the ice controlling the flow of play.
The problem here is that John Tortorella does not have that kind of team, he has the kind of team where you need to spread the ice time out a bit more evenly. Go with about 18-19 minutes on the top line, 16-17 on the 2nd line, 15-16 on the 3rd, and about 8-11 minutes for the 4th line. It’s the only way to get these kinda of players into the flow of the game, and to have them be effective. They need to get their minutes otherwise they are just going to play as if their 5-10 minutes of ice time is all about them playing strong defense. IE, how, in theory, Torts’ fictitious 3rd line would be in the previous scenario. So part of the problem here lies at the feet of Torts, for running a team that needs to be rolled out constantly as if it was a superstar led team, and part of the problem here is Glen Sather for giving his coach a team that doesn’t have the parts needed to run John Tortorella hockey.
Believe me, if you gave Torts that lineup I mentioned, that team would be scoring goals with reckless abandon, winning games 6-3 on a nightly basis. The problem of course is that we have guys like Drury, Redden, Kotalik, etc eating up salary on the cap that could have been put towards Hossa last offseason, Kovalchuk next offseason, and other players of that ilk when/if they became available.
Now, yes it’s true that both Drury and Kotalik played great the last few games, the fact of the matter is, they are still grossly overpaid and don’t bring near enough to the team to justify them being here.
So, how do we fix it? Honestly, I’d say the only true way to do it is to get rid of Glen Sather and bring in a GM who is on the same page as his coach. The only other option, which is what we saw tonight, is for the head coach to adjust his coaching to fit his team. If you look at the time on the ice for the guys, they were spread out fairly evenly. Everyone got good minutes, and the team responded by playing fresh, “wave after wave” type hockey with each line bringing energy and a different look. The flip side of course is that you will have a much harder time playing puck possession spreading the ice time out like that since, to truly play puck possession, you need puck possession type players, IE, superstars. You don’t generally see 3rd line players playing puck possession hockey and generating a ton of scoring chances, they usually play smash mouth hockey, cause turnovers, and outwork the opposition.
We all know for sure that Chris Drury will have a great holiday, win or lose, so I suggest you all do the same. Catch you on Wednesday night.
One has to wonder if the Rangers are actually playing better, or, if it is the fact that the Rangers are playing teams that are increasingly on the outside of the playoff picture as these 3 games have moved along. I mean, it is undeniable that in 3 straight games the Rangers have played better and better hockey, but you would be a fool to call it coincidence when also being pointed out that they are playing worse and worse teams.
However, one fact remains, as Henrik Lundqvist goes, so goes the Rangers. For the past 3 games it is undeniable that the King is back (and hopefully to stay). Henrik has been absolutely magnificent for 3, and actually 4 straight games. It wouldn’t be a stretch to say that without Lundqvist, the Rangers may be on a 3+ game losing streak rather than their first 3 game winning streak since the first 8 games of the season.
The trio of misfits who returned to the lineup, Kotalik, Redden, and Gilroy, all played good games. Nothing spectacular, but none of them really stood out as horrible, with the exception of 1 shocking shift that Redden had where he turned the puck over twice, and almost put the puck into his own net stick handling it out of his zone. With the exception of that rush, Redden was pretty damn good. He played the body, he made some good passes, and he wasn’t a guy you would say hurt the team out there. Gilroy was ok as well, but again his lack of strength really concerns me. Kotalik was actually probably the best of this trio, getting in deep on the forecheck and playing very hard and strong. I was actually very surprised to see that he had this kind of a battle level in him, he looked hungry out there, and for the bulk of this game, he looked like a guy you would want in your lineup, rather than a guy you simply tolerate being in your lineup. This was a good game, and on top of that I really liked the lines. Rangers need to keep this going with a huge game against the cats coming up on Wednesday.
This is frikkin hysterical…
I think it’s important for everyone to recognize that there is a difference between playing a bad team, and playing a team that is playing badly. The Philadelphia Flyers are most definitely not a bad team. All around the hockey world they were picked to be the Eastern Conference representatives in the Stanley Cup Finals (including myself), and for good reason, there is talent up and down this lineup, they have strength, power, speed, skill, tenacity, youth, veteran leadership, etc. They have a complete team, even their goaltending isn’t that terrible. However they are not playing very good hockey lately, and the Rangers are pretty fortunate to be playing a good team, that is playing poorly. With that said I thought the Flyers played a good game, and the Rangers were up to the task, thanks in large part to a repeat performance by Henrik Lundqvist, Chris Drury, and Artem Anisimov, who all had similar impact games for their teams.
Anisimov has started to come around as of late after busting out of his scoring slump against the Isles. He has looked much more confident with the puck, and I think getting countryman Enver Lisin back in the lineup, and on his wing, has helped a lot. I’m not sure why, but Anisimov seems to have genuine chemistry with the underperforming speedster. Chris Drury too has played well, sent down to the 4th line he has elevated his game a bit, actually going to the net and getting shots on goal, something we haven’t seen from the captain in quite a while. Finally you have Henrik Lundqvist who was absolutely stellar for the third game in a row. Henrik Lundqvist was definitely the biggest reason the Rangers picked up 2 points this afternoon. He was stellar, and frankly, he has to be, for the Rangers to pick up points. They aren’t playing excellent hockey right now, they are struggling in a lot of aspects, including own zone coverage (leading to Marc Staal being forced to play over 30 (YIKES!) minutes of hockey), and forecheck pressure. Henrik has been up to the task lately, which is what you expect from a guy who is supposed to be one of the best goalies in the world. Henrik has lived up to that reputation these past few games, hopefully his typical november-december slump is over and he’s ready to heat up and carry us the rest of the way. Who knows. Either way, it’s great to see the King back.
Next game is against the Canes, Rangers are playing the worst team in the NHL, if they have a let down game here, they should be crucified, because they are most definitely not in a position to be taking anyone for granted.
An exhausting day for me, so I’m gonna keep this short. I wasn’t all that happy with the game today. I think Torts hit the nail on the head in his post game interview, we’ve played better games during this stretch and lost. We played a team whose defensive coverage was horrendous and soft, almost as bad as our own. The difference was our goalie was un-frikkin-believable the entire game. Henrik Lundqvist was the story tonight. The 5 goals scored were nice, Drury finally putting one in the net was nice. Other guys besides Gaborik scoring was nice. But the fact of the matter is, I don’t buy it, not yet. Show me more, for more games, and I’ll change my mind a bit. Right now, this game looked way too much like our last game for my liking. I think the Rangers just were able to finish a bit more, the effort level was still not near enough for my liking.
That’s all for me, I can barely keep my eyes open.
So, you’re the New York Rangers, a team that can’t buy a win to save your life. You have a home game against one of your most bitter rivals. Not only against one of your most bitter rivals, but a team you are directly competing against for a playoff spot. Not only all that, but against a team coming off an ass whooping just last game. So, what do you do? Do you come out guns a blazing, do you build on the superb performance against the Thrashers and pepper the oppositions with shot after shot forcing their goalie to beat you, rather than letting him get a win? No, what the Rangers did was bend over, drop their drawers, and take a pounding. Yes, that’s not a PG statement to make for a blog I try to keep clean, but that’s just how it was. We weren’t just bad, we were lazy, and got outworked in all aspects of the game. Only in the last 90 seconds did the Rangers muster up the kind of effort you would have EXPECTED for the full 60 minutes. That is completely unacceptable. Not in this town, not for an original 6 team, not with a team that is at the maximum cap threshold. If you saw tonights game, you were no doubt disgusted, and it appears coach Tortorella feels the same way after he threw a well deserved tirade during the post game interviews.
If it were me, the first thing that would happen is stripping Chris Drury of his captainship. Captains don’t play like Drury. Captains go out there and win their team games, they play tough in all 3 zones, they score goals, get assists, do whatever it takes to win games, instead Drury simply does nothing. He blocks shots, takes faceoffs, and does shit all else. You don’t give the captaincy of the New York Friggin Rangers to the most overpaid 4th line player in the history of the NHL. Take that C off and give it to the real captain of the Rangers, Henrik Lundqvist. I may be on Henriks case this year, but he is still the only player besides Gaborik who seems to give it his best night in and night out. He gets very little support out there, and I think he is the actual captain of this team regardless. The ‘Nucks did it with Luongo, I say we do it with Lundqvist.
The second thing I would do is march into Glen Sathers office, and demand a firesale. If we’re going to lose, then I want to lose with guys like Redden, Rozsival, Drury, Kotalik, etc off this team. They aren’t long term solutions, and since the short term is so epically screwed, we might as well use those spots to develop our kids.
Let’s see what happens tomorrow, but it wouldn’t surprise me if there is a huge shakeup on this team.
First, the Red Sux sign John Lackey putting together the best rotation in baseball. Then the Phillies get arguably the best pitcher in baseball and lock him up for the next 4 years, and then the Rangers play a solid game, only to fall because of, once again, goaltending.
Henrik Lundqvist was not bad in this game. But he wasn’t great either. He made some nice stops on the 5 on 3 at the end, but by then the damage was done. He gave up a goal from the blueline which I know he saw (the seas parted right as Kozlov was on his back swing) and he dropped down WAY too early on the short handed goal to Armstrong exposing the entire top of the net so much so that even I could have score on him, and finally he didnt make a save in the shootout effectively giving away 3 points (2 points the Thrashers didn’t deserve, and 1 point the Rangers did deserve).
On the flip side, Hedberg was definitely a difference maker. The Rangers badly outplayed the Thrashers tonight, peppering Hedberg with over 40 shots, many of them from within 2 feet of the goalie, and quite a few breakaways or partial breakaways mixed in there as well. This is the kind of game we saw last year in our favor. Team played like utter crap, but our goalie was the difference and we won. Unfortunately now, Henrik Lundqvist is, by and large, not a difference maker out there every night. You really have no idea what Lundqvist you are going to get from game to game, you might get the inarguable top goalie in the world that he has been for his entire career, or you might get an enigma of a goalie who seems to make spectacular saves every game, only to give up 2 or more questionable ones as well. What good is it for him to make all those amazing saves if the saveable ones are the ones that are going in? It’s deflating, and frankly I’m wondering if his poor play is actually leading to us having such a trouble scoring.
As a guy who has played on a team where goaltending was a huge problem, I can tell you that when your goalie is playing like crap, you most definitely see a noticeable drop in offensive production. You squeeze sticks knowing that you absolutely must score at least 4 goals a game in order to win because your goalie is definitely going to give up 3 or more regardless of how well you play in front of him. Last season my team went through a stretch where we gave up over 10 goals a game, and didn’t score a single goal for 6 games consecutively. That’s right, we gave up over 60 goals and did not score a single one. Why? Our goaltending was just so horrific that the entire team clammed up into a hyper defensive paranoid B.S. type of hockey because we knew our goalie wasn’t going to be good enough for us to win. Clearly this isn’t 100% the same thing, but its close enough that I can understand how Henriks play is adversely affecting the offensive support. I mean, its not all on him, but at least some small part of his poor play is causing the lack of offense in front of him.
The Rangers will never turn this around if Lundqvist continues to show a lack of focus and concentration that defined him as an elite goalie. Who knows, maybe all these years of constant man under fire type hockey has worn him down, but whatever it is, he is not the same goalie, and it’s likely going to cost this team a playoff spot if it continues.