It was great the Rangers were able to pull out a crucial point from this game. Always good to start the season with something in the bank. But, it can not be emphasized enough, they played a piss poor game today. From the offense, to the defense, they were not very good. Henrik Lundqvist alone stands blameless.

Let’s first talk about the defense since they were a little less to blame for this loss. Dan Girardi was in beast mode tonight, playing an exceptional game, but the 2 kids, Michael Del Zotto, and Ryan McDonagh, in my humble opinion, stole the show. Despite MCD being in the box for the game winning goal, and MDZ losing his man for the game tying goal, both of these kids played exceptional hockey in all 3 zones. McDonagh was cool, calm, and collected, breaking up a 3 on 1 with a perfect poke check, and MDZ was throwing his body around all night, and was making (mostly) smart, quick passes up the ice to start the rush, along with joining it whenever possible. Eminger, , Erixon, and Sauer were less spectacular, Eminger in particular looked like he was running around in his own zone a lot, and Erixon looked very much like a young kid just breaking into the NHL. I like the idea of letting this kid cut his teeth in the minors. Hopefully Staal will be good to go soon, but who knows.

The forwards though, they were a mess. The top line of Dubinsky, Gaborik, and Richards were uneven. They scored a goal, and Gaborik certainly played very well, but there was no obvious chemistry. They didn’t dominate shift after shift. They probably only had 3 shifts you could constitute as being great. Other than that they were mostly a non factor. I still think this team is best serve with Dubinsky on the 2nd line with Anisimov and Callahan. Callahan scored a goal, which was great because it negated the awful pass he had to Anisimov which directly led to the Kings first goal. Anisimov and Callahan were excellent, but they were missing Dubi on the left side. Fedotenko did an admirable job for sure, but he doesn’t have much offensive pop to go with his defensive game. He needs to be on the 3rd line.

Now the obvious choice to play on that top line, if not Dubinsky, should be Wolski. But he was a healthy scratch tonight. Wait. What? He played? Are you sure? Well, Ok then, nevermind. A truly uninspired, lazy, passive, terrible game by Wojtek Wolski. It brought down his entire line as MZA and Stepan were basically playing shorthanded their entire shifts. Wolski never won any puck battles, he never gave that extra effort to hunt down lost pucks, he just plain and simple sucked. You know who would have looked good on that left side? Sean Avery. *grumbles*

All in all, it was a terrible effort by the Rangers, and yet they managed to get a point out of it. Thank Henrik Lundqvist for that. It gets much harder tomorrow as the beastly line of Bobby Ryan, Corey Perry, and Ryan Getzlaf will almost assuredly dominate a Staal-less Rangers squad. I am not looking forward to that 1 bit.

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Well, I’ve gone ahead and done it. I’ve succumbed to the evil, disgusting, terrible creature known as Twitter. I didn’t want to, but I knew if I wanted to keep up with the Joneses, I would have to…*sigh*

My Twitter

@Inferno_rangers

I’m not sure if I have this formatted or not, feel free to tell me on Twitter.

BTW, some site stats…according to my website report this site has received a ridiculous 1.2 million unique visitors from Jan 1 to June 1 of this year….I have no idea how the hell that is possible, but apparently it’s true. Sheesh.

EDIT:

Yes, I will follow back everyone who follows me…some people have asked me that so I figure I would just post it here. I may not follow you back like instantaneously, but I should get to it sometime during the day, or in a few days if I’m slammed with work. Really I think it’s just a good way for me to keep in touch with people who read the blog. People ask me why I have the comments disabled, well the fact of the matter is, I need to police it 24/7. I get spam, and other crap and it’s just a full time job. I already have a full time job. I actually have a few considering I own a few companies. I don’t have time for that. But, as I do sit at a computer for most of the day, it would be nice to see what’s going on with you guys without having to worry about “protecting” my blog. Hope that makes sense to everyone.

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It was a dreadful performance by the Rangers. There is no other way to put it. Martin Biron was putrid beyond belief. The defense looked like they were skating without blades on their feet. The offense outside of Artem Anisimov looked like they were playing curling instead of hockey. It was just a dismal game for a team that prides itself on effort level and passion.

Then, to top it all off, the Rangers announce that Sean Avery will be the one losing his roster spot today, inexplicably choosing Erik Christensen who showed NOTHING out there this entire preseason. A rather dreary few days in rangerworld wouldn’t you say?

Getting back to the game, I know peoples first instincts are to blame the travel or to blame the preseason or to blame Frosty the snowman, but the fact of the matter is, this is the NHL, the Rangers should steamroll a swiss team. I don’t want to hear about big rinks or speedy players, we are a team looking to compete for the Atlantic Division crown this regular season, a team like EV Zug should be annihilated by us. Likely, that is where the problem stems from. The Rangers thought if they just showed up, they would win. This is not the case, and likely if Henrik Lundqvist was in net they would have won, but the fact of the matter is, a John Tortorella team can not have pathetic displays of heart, passion, and effort out there like was saw yesterday afternoon. Not against EV Zug, not against the Ottawa Senators, not against the New York Islanders, not against ANY team that they are expected to, and should, destroy.

At times the combination of Brad Richards and Marian Gaborik look spectacular, and at times they look completely lost. I still feel the missing component is that left winger. While Brandon Dubinsky didn’t look out of place, the fact of the matter is, the Rangers can have a 1A 2nd line with Dubi playing with AA and Cally, whereas when he moves off that line, those 2 suffer greatly. The Pack line is clearly an example of the sum of the parts being better than the individuals therein. The Rangers really need to do all they can to get Zach Parise on the Rangers this offseason to complete that line, because as of now, I have a feeling that top line LW spot will be a revolving door of fail.

OK, I’ve gotta get back to work, can’t wait for the season to start!

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This is one you have to chalk up to the Rangers hectic travel schedule. Clearly the team was gassed to start the game, as they were unable to generate any sort of foot speed, and looked lethargic out there to a man. As the game wore on, the Rangers seemed to get their energy levels up to respectable levels, and were able to pull of a win, albeit an unimpressive win considering the caliber of player they were playing against. Marian Gaborik and Brad Richards looked fairly pedestrian out there, as did the Pack line. Putting Dubinsky on the top line did seem to get them sparked a little, but it didn’t do enough to make it a permanent (for torts) change.

Was anyone else watching the defense as Artem Anisimov had all day to take multiple shots against the HC Slovan goalie from 1 foot in front of him? I sure was, and all I could think of was, if those 3 guys played for John Tortorella, they wouldn’t play another minute in this game.

Kudos to Brian Boyle, granted he didn’t do much with Richards and Gabby, but he did score a big goal, it’s worth noting the Rangers have decided to go with 5 forwards, for now, on the 5 on 3. I think this is very smart by Torts. The Rangers power play looked up and down, as the hyper aggressive HC Slovan team seemed to give them some trouble in terms of zone entry, but once they had the puck, they were very good at moving it around.

I am so done with Bickel, why is he still on this roster? I’ll take Bell over him any day of the week.

That’s all for now, gotta get to bed! Big day for me, announced to the world I’m engaged!

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Is anyone else getting tired of games that have next to no roster implications at all? I mean, we get it, there are 1 or 2 spots available on this team, mostly as backup players. but seriously, does anyone really think Dylan McIlrath, Bell, Parlett, Mitchell, etc will make this team? Come on guys, really?

I think the reason the Rangers have so many players on their team right now is because they have a ridiculous 4 games in 5 nights schedule (though as someone who just finished 7 games in 6 nights, they shouldn’t complain). They should really try to get some of their regulars going out there because from what we’ve seen, the Rangers regulars have not been all that impressive this preseason, as it took a pretty monumental performance by Martin Biron for most of the regular season Rangers to be a Czech hockey team. That should not happen.

As it stood, the Connecticut Wha…err New York Rangers pretty much manhandled a Frolunda team that is already well into their regular season. I guess this shows you why you shouldn’t put much stock into SEL players who dominate, a-la Fabian Brunnstrom, Tim Erixon and Mats Zucarello-Aasen. It’s nice, but I want to see what you do against a significantly better opponent.

To be fair, both Erixon and MZA played pretty good games. Michael Del Zotto, while scoring a nice goal and getting an assist, wasn’t as good as he has been most of this preseason. Wojtek Wolski who missed a superb chance off of a beautiful pass by, I think Christensen, didn’t do much at all out there. Frankly he’s been rather disappointing after hearing all the hard work he put in this offseason. We’ll see how it goes for Wojtek, but it wouldn’t surprise me if the every day left winger for Gaborik and Richards ends up being Derek Stepan.

All in all it was a pretty blah game for the boys in blue. They didn’t look particularly motivated like they usually do, outside of Henrik of course, and they rather easily beat a team that outworked them considerably. This is the antithesis of New York Rangers hockey this past season. They never were outworked, though they were frequently outskilled. Tonight was kind of strange because they clearly had some players who were more skilled than the Frolunda team, but not enough that they should have been so blah out there.

Give credit to some of the kids though, Bourque and Hagelin have both been outstanding, as has an oft injured Sean Avery. It would be criminal if Sean Avery does not make this team. This preseason he has BADLY outplayed nearly every other Ranger forward, and he has kept his cool, not taking stupid penalties. The Rangers will need Sean Avery this season, especially if he can carry this play forward. Ok, more later, I’m off to bed!

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