First of all congratulations to the New York Giants for their Super Bowl victory. I’m not a Giants fan, I’m actually a fan of the team they beat in the NFC championship game. But honestly I don’t really watch football so to me it’s all moot anyway. Regardless, it’s always good to see a New York team beat a Boston area team. Buck Foston as I love to say.

Funny thing is, I actually watched this game on DVR during the super bowl, shows you how much I care for that game anyway aye? The game itself was very well played, even though the Rangers were rather fortunate in not having to face JVR, Briere, Pronger, etc from the Flyers. The key though was John Tortorella’s decision to reunite the Anisimov – Stepan – Gaborik trio which were deservingly broken up a while back when their early season magic evaporated. The trio was able to rekindle that magic tonight combining for 2 goals and 5 assists. That’s the kind of play they were giving us when the Rangers were winning 7 games in a row with regularity. The Rangers, of late, have been winning mostly on the backs of their team defense and Henrik Lundqvist between the pipes. When they can finally get their offense going, they will once again play like they did when they were just steamrolling the earlier parts of this season. To be fair the Rangers have gotten 9 out of a possible 10 points in their last game, so it’s not as if they are struggling. But they aren’t playing that dominating type hockey they did earlier. They are sorta finding ways to win, rather than strangling the opposition. It’s good to see them get one of their lines going, if only for a game. The key here, is to get Brad Richards and his line going so that the Rangers can go back to their formula of having 2 top lines to carry the offense while allowing the bottom line players to chip in here and there. One step at a time though.

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It happens. At least a handful of times a season, you’re going to lose a game you deserved to win. For every goal with 0.01 seconds to go you score to win a game, you’re going to give up a lead off of a crazy bounce and a questionable holding call. It happens. Forget it. Move on.

The Rangers played really well tonight. I totally concur with coach Tortorellas opinion that the Rangers just got an unlucky bounce. You can’t kill the team for that. They played a pretty strong game, they had a lot of chances, they played pretty well defensively, and they played well enough to win. They just…didn’t.

Some of that blame has to fall on the shoulders of Martin Biron. Biron gave up several soft goals. His shootout goal that he gave up, he practically gave the entire bottom half of the net away to Kovalchuk. The fluke goal he didn’t even react to. Let’s not even talk about the shortside goal against Parise where he was off his post and gave up too much net up high to Parise to shoot at from that angle. But, let’s face it. That is Marty Biron. He’s a backup goalie. If he would stop all of those, he would be a starting goalie somewhere else. He stays in the net, he makes most of the saves he should, a few saves he shouldn’t but almost never steals you a game. He keeps his team in it. The Rangers were in it. They were more than in it, they were winning, and a weird bounce happens and they lose. Hey, they still got a point with their backup goalie in net. I can live with that.

Someone, anyone, please shoot me a link to the penalty call on Artem Anisimov. I need to see that again. When I was looking at it live, it really did not look at all like a penalty. It looked like Anisimov was in pretty good position, but never actually held on to the opposing player. He used is body, he tried to reach for the puck, but I don’t recall seeing a hold of any sort. I want to see it again though to be sure.

Luckily the Rangers are right back at it tomorrow night against what I am sure will be a hungry Buffalo team who wants to rebound from their awful first half. Henrik should be in net, and that bodes well for the Rangers.

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Taken from this post courtesy of NYRMatt

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You could look at “the house” being Madison Square Garden. The Rangers home. A place where last year they couldn’t win a game to save their lives. Last year the Rangers were one of the best road teams in the league, but their ineptitude at home cost them a bad first round seed against the Caps who just are not a good matchup for us. That inability to win at home hurt the team in the playoffs as well, when the team couldn’t win games they had late leads in, and just plain couldn’t do what it took to get past the high octane Caps. This year the Rangers are just as good at home as they are on the road. That difference has rocketed the Rangers up the standings to tops in the East, a full 2 points ahead of Bawstun with all games in hand by the Brooins played. They are 2 points behind the scorching hot Red Wings, with 2 games in hand on Detroit.

The house, though, is also the area in front of the goal, the zone where all the dirty goals tend to be scored. The area in front of the net, and into the high slot area where teams try to funnel the puck to get scoring chances. The Rangers, for the most part, were outstanding in that area of the ice tonight. Forcing the vast majority of the shots outside of that area. While they did have some breakdowns, as inevitably happens, Henrik Lundqvist was there, earning every bit of his 6.5 million dollar a year salary.

It is the Rangers willingness to sacrifice their bodies to block shots while in the house that causes teams to think twice about shooting. The Jets were definitely passing up shots because they knew the shots would most likely be blocked. Limit those shots against, and you limit the oppositions ability to score goals. It’s a fairly simple formula to understand, but it’s taken the Rangers a while to get that through their heads.

Heading into the break it’s tough to imagine a better first half. The Rangers were an incredibly consistent team, and really, if they didn’t have that ridiculous schedule to start the season, they could very well be even better than they are now. They have withstood some pretty bad injuries to their D, getting very little offensive production from their leading point scorer from a year ago, and have one of the worst power plays in the league. Somehow, they carry the best winning % in the NHL into the break? Why? Because of a guy who deserves the Jack Adams award. That’s why.

See you guys in a week!

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As a die hard New York Yankee supporter, I clearly hate all things Boston (except my 4 cousins and 1 uncle who live up there). So maybe I’m not the most impartial person in the world when it comes to these things. But, I can honestly say right now that I think Tim Thomas is a giant DICK. I don’t usually curse on this blog, but I think it applies here. As you may or may not have heard, Tim Thomas decided to skip the visit to the White House due to his political beliefs. Look. I don’t care if you are the biggest left winger in the world or the biggest neo-con in the world. When you are invited to meet with the President, you meet with him. I don’t care if its George W. Bush, Richard Nixon, Bill Clinton, or Barack Obama. You shake the mans hand. He’s the effing PRESIDENT. Show some class you piece of crap.

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The Boston Bruins are a great team. Make no mistake about it. They deserve to be the Stanley Cup Champs. They are fundamentally nearly flawless. They play an outstanding defensive game. They have some superb upper end offense, and an outstanding defense with superb goaltending. They work hard each and every shift, and throw their bodies around with reckless abandon.

Now. Re-read that entire sentence, and instead of Boston Bruins, swap it out for New York Rangers. Outside of the Stanley Cup champs remark, doesn’t all that stuff apply to the Rangers as well? There’s a reason. The Rangers play a damn near identical style to the Bruins. The Bruins are probably better at puck control, but the Rangers also probably have the better horses up front. Little difference here and there, but by and large, very similar teams. As such, the Rangers definitely earned their win tonight, going toe-to-toe with a damn good team, and coming up with an extra time win. It was just a fun game to watch, though it was slightly marred by the flagrant, and exceptionally dangerous check that Ference threw on Ryan McDonagh. The Rangers can only pray that the wonder-kid is doing ok. Rangers can’t afford to have a guy like that go out for any long stretch. This team is built on their defense.

Henrik Lundqvist was outstanding tonight, but, you’d also have to say, he was very lucky as well. So many times he was caught in super-scramble mode only to be totally bailed out by his defense, the post, a body in front, or the puck just being shot high or wide. I’m not used to seeing Henrik in such a scramble mode. The guy is usually outstanding at keeping his cool in the net, not over committing to anything and just being a calming factor in general. Kinda got the feeling his juices were flowing just a bit more than usual. Can’t blame him, this was a huge game, a huge win, and a step in the right direction.

Some food for thought… The Rangers are now 7-2 against the Broooooins over the past 2+ years. Henrik Lundqvist is an unreal 17-5-2 with a GAA of 1.51 (stats courtesy of the HFBoards users, surf and pld459666). I knew the record of the teams over the past 2 years was that, but wow, look at Henriks numbers…those are SICK.

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I don’t think the score was a far characterization of how this game was played. To be totally frank, I thought for the bulk of this game the Rangers played the Pens fairly evenly. I don’t think this was the case of 1 team blowing the doors off the other. The score was, after all, tied going into the 3rd period.

The difference in this game, to me, was the Rangers were unable to take advantage of the Penguins mistakes. They were a hair off. They got a turnover, but missed the shot wide. They forced an errant pass, but decided to change instead of going for it (probably a safe, smart thing to do, to be fair). The Pens on the other hand seemed to capitalize on every Rangers mistake. If it wasn’t in the back of the net, it was a high quality scoring chance. The Pens looked to execute an offensive gameplan better than the Rangers did.

A huge reason why? Brad Richards. He’s not been good of late. Dare I say, he’s been borderline terrible. Not going to get down on the guy because I think part of the reason he is struggling is because the players around him are struggling as well, but Richards needs to be a lot better. We know he can produce, he has since he got here, but a long dry spell. 0 points in his last 6 games. Held scoreless in 11 out of his last 15 games. It’s just not enough. He’s getting power play time. He’s getting even strength time. He’s just…not….producing. Think it’s a coincidence the Rangers are on a rollercoaster ride of late? None of their big guns are going. I just mentioned Richards’ cold streak, how about Gaborik? In his last 11 games he has 1 goal and 3 assists, and those assists are only in the past 3 games, 2 of which were losses. Gabby needs to play a lot better, and Richards needs to play a lot better. Your best players have to be your best players. Sure, sometimes you need your role players to step up. That’s what they’ve done. The Rangers are on a seesaw ride right now because their role players are getting them some wins, but if they want to go from weeblewobble to a winning streak, they need Gabby and Richards to be a whole hell of a lot better than they have been.

It also seems the Tortorella has lost all faith in Stu Bickels ability, though to be honest I think he’s played probably better than Marc Staal, who has been uneven since coming back from his injury. Looking equal parts great as he has looked awful. Stralman too has seen some ice time taken away from him, probably unfairly as well. The Rangers like to ride their horses, and it looks like we know who those horses are.

On a side note Michael Del Zotto has only been a (+) players once in his last 11 games. He’s been a -5 during that time period. Not good for a guy that has been a big time plus player for the Rangers. It’s not his defensive play that seems to have slipped, it’s his offensive play. I wonder if it has something to do with the Rangers big guns being silent. Is it all feeding into each other? Del Zottos play slips because Gabby and Richards play slips…or is it maybe the other way around? Or is it a killer circle? Will be interesting to see how, and when the Rangers snap outta this funk.

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A friend of mine started up this directory where you can list companies, blogs, etc for free as long as they are products or services or whatever that are made in the USA. I listed my site for free, you can too, there’s a contact us page if the category you want to list your site/blog/whatever isn’t there yet. Thought I’d share it & help a buddy out.

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Even without all-star Ryan Suter, the Predators are a damn good team. A team with balanced scoring. A hard working team. A team with another superstar defenseman in Shea Weber, and a team with good speed, and an outstanding coach. The Predators are very similar to the New York Rangers…without the budget. That budget, though, did not really help the Rangers at all, as the Rangers got their goal scoring from an undrafted free agent signing, a my garbage for your garbage type trade, and a 4th round draft pick. No huge signings there. Just guys you get through smart scouting, and patience. John Mitchell won’t be winning you many games with his skill, but he’s a good foot soldier. Dan Girardi has risen from nobody to all-star with this organization, and of course you have Ryan Callahan going from a too small to play in the NHL draft pick, to being the captain of an original 6 franchise. Pretty strange the way this game works aye?

For all that though, the Rangers didn’t really play a great game. They didn’t have that dominating type effort that they had against the Toronto Maple Leafs a few days ago. What they did was to play well enough to win. They got some lucky goals, they got the usual elite goaltending we see from Henrik Lundqvist in pretty much any game not in Montreal, and the Rangers got themselves the NHL leading 61st and 62nd points. They halted a losing streak at 1 (can you have a 1 game losing streak? I guess not…) and they hopefully started up another winning streak.

On a side note, I wonder if Artem Anisimov is injured. He just looks very off the past 10-12 games. Something isn’t right there. Usually Arty does something excellent every game. Offensively, defensively, he usually do something right, but the last while here he’s just been wrong. Kinda like Dubinsky was before he started to get hot. Hopefully it’s just a cold streak and he straightens it out, if it is an injury, I hope he does the right thing and takes a few games off to get himself healthy.

Finally, it appears as if Michael Sauer and Steve Eminger could be coming back in a matter of a few weeks. This bodes very well for the Rangers as Bickel has quickly lost some favor with Torts (for good reason) and Anton Stralman seems to be as apt to put up a great game as he is to put up an absolute clunker. Get both those guys in, and you have a top 6 that can go head to head with any D in the NHL.

That’s all for now!

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Rangers don’t win in Montreal. Period. Anyone who is shocked we lost should have their head examined. We don’t win in Montreal. WE DON’T WIN IN MONTREAL. Rangers should just concede these 2 games every year and not even make the trip.

That’s all I’m going to say on this game. Honestly, I probably should have just written this one before the game and skipped it altogether. These games are just never worth watching. The house of horrors, the kyrptonite, the whatever you want to call it, that building just kills this team. You could assemble the greatest talent in the history of the game, put them in Rangers jerseys, and then put a bunch of newborn babies in Habs jerseys and play them against each other, and somehow the babies would still win. I don’t know how it happens. I can’t explain it. It is what it is, don’t make this game anything more than that.

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