Won’t get a chance to watch this one till tomorrow. I’ll post a writeup if and when I get a chance…

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If you have been perusing this blog for any period of time you would know that I am not a guy who puts much stock in wins and losses. To me, it will be always about the quality of play on the ice. My theory is, if the team plays good solid hockey, and sticks with their system, then they will, en masse, win more games than they lose. With that said I do feel that the Rangers did not play all that well tonight, probably did not deserve to win, but I am very happy that the Rangers did win tonight. Why? The simple fact is, they showed guts. They didn’t play as hard as you would like, they didn’t execute the gameplan like they should have, they didn’t play smart hockey. However, they did continuously come back from 1 goal deficits, and showed a tremendous will to win at these junctures. Twice tying the game mere seconds after going down a goal. Of course, to be fair, they were helped by some terrible goaltending by Brian Elliot, but sometimes you get games like this. Not every goalie in the league is at the same caliber as Henrik Lundqvist, that is why he is being paid what he is being paid. When the other goalie craps the bed, you have to take advantage. Tonight, the Rangers did.

They were led by Marian Gaborik who had 2 assists, and numerous goal scoring chances generated by some hard work. The on again off again superstar needs to play like this with more regularity as he has been held off the scoresheet far too often this year.

Ok, that’s all for now. Going to catch some z’s.

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Was feeling a little sentimental over on the HFBoards, so I made a few posts…..here are the relevant parts…

With this decade just about over I figured we could talk about some of our best and worst moves. so give me your choices.
From 2000-2010
Best Free Agent Signing:
Best Trade:
Best Draft Pick:

Worst Free Agent Signing:
Worst Trade:
Worst Draft Pick:

here are mine:

Best Free Agent Signing: Michael Nylander. A PPG+ player for only 3 mil a year. Frikkin steal.

Best Trade: Rangers acquire Jaromir Jagr for Anson Carter…with the Caps picking up some of the tab to boot!

Best Draft Pick:Henrik Lundqvist: 204 players taken before him…including #1 overall pick Rick DiPietro

Worst Free Agent Signing: Wade Redden. 6 years, 6.5 million dollars a season, and he didnt even last 1/2 the contract before being sent to the minors. Without a doubt the worst contract given out in a series of awful contracts.

Worst Trade: There are a few to choose from, but im going the sentimental route. Even though we ended up getting Michael Sauer from the trade, I still think trading Brian Leetch was frikkin disgusting.

Worst Draft Pick: Hugh Jessiman. Need I say more?

Here is the other post…

Since we all are armchair GM’s here, let’s see how we would have done.

Gonna post the past 10 draft results (first round only). I’ll give you who we got, you give me who you woulda taken (at the time…not now, if you didnt pay attention to prospects then, skip the year till you did)…and you can grade yourself.

2000: No pick
2001: Dan Blackburn
2002: No Pick
2003: Hugh Jessiman
2004: Al Montoya, Lauri Korpikoski
2005: Marc Staal
2006: Bobby Sanguinetti
2007: Alexei Cherepanov
2008: MDZ
2009: Chris Kreider
2010: Dylan McIlrath

Here were my picks:
2001: Didnt Pay Attention
2003: Ryan Getzlaf (I definitely beat the Rangers here)
2004: Olesz, Schremp (Call it a push I guess)
2005: Marc Staal…Got the guy I wanted.
2006: Bobby Sanguinetti…same as above
2007: Alexei Cherepanov…same as above
2008: John Carlson.. so far Carlson has 19 points in 51 games, thats .37PPG, mdz has .41PPG…I’m gonna call this a push..though I can totally understand if ppl wanna call MDZ the winner here.
2009: Jordan Schroeder…though Kreider was my 2nd choice here. Too early to tell definitely, but its sure looking like Kreider is the better pick here…by FAR.
2010: Brandon Gormley…way too early to tell, but I think I will end up being right here. *shrugs*

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The Rangers did not lose tonight because of crappy reffing, but there was crappy reffing. The Rangers did not lose because of bad luck, but they did have bad luck. The Rangers lost for one simple reason. They did not give forth the type of effort the Rangers must do on a night in and night out basis in order to win. They weren’t even close. That’s all I have to say about this. Rangers deserved to lose based on their effort.

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Almost 6am here, so I’m going to keep this one extremely brief. This was an extremely boring game to watch. If I wasn’t such a die hard Ranger fan, I probably would have fallen asleep during the game, as it was, thanks to the time, I was barely able to even defeat the sandman. The Rangers played a lock down defensive game, and the Islanders played a lock down defensive game. What you had was a game where most of the play was in the neutral zone, or along the boards, with very few quality scoring chances to speak of. In fact I would reckon the Isles had roughly 3 or 4 good chances in the game…if that. The Rangers were definitely better than the Isles for the vast majority of the game, but it’s not like they dominated the opposition either. This kind of hockey hearkens back to the Devils trap days of yore, and I will be very happy if I never have to see this boring crap ever again.

That’s all, I need to get some z’s!

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Usually I agree with just about everything coach Tortorella does and says, tonight, however, I emphatically disagree with him. Torts seemed fairly disgusted with the team performance in his post game interview. He seemed to be on the verge of calling out certain players for poor play but did not do so. Personally I don’t think we played all that poorly. True, there were surges by both teams along the way, but that’s true of almost every game every team plays all year long (though granted, not as extreme as tonight). However to me the only reason the game was as close as it was, was due to some pretty horrific goaltending by Martin Biron, whom the coach did not want to call out. Biron should have had all 3 goals, or at least made better attempts to save them. Unlike Henrik there weren’t deflections in front of him, he simply misplayed every goal. It happens, thats why he is the backup goalie and not the starter. You take out those 3 goals, and this was a 6-2 ass whooping by the Rangers.

I think it was clear to everyone who watched that Sean Avery was the best player on the ice for either team. He was an absolute monster out there, unstoppable with his drive and determination. Even though I disagree with Torts’ thoughts on the game itself, he has an uncanny ability to feel the game (most night) with which player is going, and which players are not, and diverting ice time as such. This was something Tom Renney was, and still is, abysmal at. Renney was a guy who rode his horses, through thick and thin. Torts will ride whichever players give the team the best chance to win that night. That is why he is a Stanley Cup, Calder Cup, and Silver Medal winning coach (and assistant coach), and why Tom Renney hasn’t accomplished jack in his career. Torts’ feel for the game was on display again when he pulled Biron and put in Henrik. It paid immediate dividends as the Rangers never trailed again 51 seconds after that point. Henrik gave the chance to win in net, Biron didn’t. Torts saw it, and made the move.

I’d like to point out that I can’t really remember the last time the Rangers had a coach that could win the team games with his managing on a fairly consistent basis. Renney couldn’t, Muckler couldn’t, Trottier couldn’t, Sather sure as hell couldn’t. Might have to go all the way back to Keenan to go to a coach who could influence the outcome, mid-game like that.

But still, I disagree with his post game assessment

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