-As usual, older posts at the top, newer posts at the bottom. Rangers are sending their 2nd, 3rd, 4th, and…well, 5th liners out there, with only 50% of their projected opening night defense. The Senators have almost their entire opening day lineup out there. Rangers probably won’t win this one, and if they do, it’ll be a very surprising win indeed.
-I almost feel like crying. Hockeys back baby! YAHHOOOO!!!!
-Rissmiller looks like he should be sitting in a spaceship abducting people.
-Ahhhh, Shoenfeld behind the bench instead of Renney. Too bad we can’t have this every game.
-Ottawa throwing the body like crazy, Voros and Mara both flattened on the same shift.
-Heatley with a blast, beats Vally cleanly. Can’t have Heatley wide open in his office.
-Callahan gets away with an elbow, glad to see hes involved with the physicality.
-Byers throwing the body consistently. This game is really uptempo and PHYSICAL.
-Wow, Dawes just blows by Prucha on the backcheck, it was a small little play, but you saw some explosiveness from Dawes in his skating stride there.
-Del Zotto to the box, looks like a good call at first glance.
-Rangers get a whistle right back, to me it looked like he just fell over, not much contact.
-Staal has been carrying the puck in with authority several times. Rangers take another penalty, thats 3 so far in the first, and were not even halfway done with the period.
-LOL, another penalty, this time to the Senators. Sheesh, a whistle every 70 seconds or so.
-Del Zotto takes down Foligno with the body. Superb play.
-Wow, yet another penalty, this time its the Senators. Wow.
-Things are getting heated out there. Hockey is back baby.
-Pruchas looked very good. Just as I say that, Rozsival loses the puck, and Spezza gets a shorty. 2-0 Sens.
-Ottawa takes yet another penalty.
-Buahahahah, guess what? Another penalty. Rangers go on a long 5 on 3. Let’s hope they cash in.
-Man, the 5 on 3 looks worse than last year if anything (so far).
-Another penalty on Ottawa. Theyve had like 6 Power Plays this period, and have absolutely nothing to show for it. Not even many shots.
-Prucha with a bad turnover, Rangers get called for a penalty. This game is going to take a ton of time with all these penalties being called.
-Ottawa, when they arent killing penalties, are just dominating this game.
-Well, my thoughts on the first period are pretty easy. Rangers have a far less talented group of players out there, and it’s definitely showing. When they are on the power play, it looks like they are playing even strength, when they are at even strength, it looks like they are down a man, and when they are killing a penalty, it looks like they are down 2 men. Don’t read too much into it, Rangers have about half their roster against basically the entire Senators team.
-Second period set to start.
-Well, you know hockey is back when Prucha gets plastered with an open ice hit.
-Ottawa goes up 3-0. Vally has to stop that one. Terrible goal.
-Rangers go back on the PP, im sure Ottawa will score another shorty before we score a PP goal.
-Dane Byers gets plastered.
-Dubi Dubi DOO! Dubinsky gets the Rangers off the schnied!
-Senators go on the PK again. I think its 2 minutes for sneezing.
-Dawes, Prucha and Drury with a really nice shift there on the PP. Prucha sets up Mara for a point blanker that he doesnt score on.
-Rangers go on the PK. Theyve had some good shift though before that. Theyve looked much stronger on the puck, and quicker to transition into the offensive zone.
-Reffing has been PUTRID today. Yes, its been putrid in our favor, but it that doesnt make it any less putrid.
-Vally out, Wiikman in. Vally was not very good. He was mediocre. Beaten 4 times, one of the shots hitting the post.
-Rangers back on the PK.
-Ottawa takes another penalty. This is crazy.
-Penalty on Orr, this is something like 17 or 18 penalties so far through 2 periods between the 2 teams.
-Well, that second period was way different than the first, Rangers looked much better, setting up plays, getting men to the net, funneling the puck there, getting rushes. They looked much better. But, they still only scored the 1 goal on a beautiful play by Dubinsky splitting 2 players with a burst of speed and wristing one top shelf. Other than that they really have nothing else to show for themselves. I think if both teams had their full lineups out there, Rangers would be up by the same score we have here (3-1) rather than the other way around. Ottawa did have quite a few gorgeous passing plays out there though that really raised my eyebrows.
-Rangers about to be 2 men down.
-Rangers back to the sin bin. Dubi has been trying to do way too much by himself in this period.
-Dane Byers absolutely flattens someone.
-MSG having technical difficulties. Its been like that for a few years now, they need to have a much higher quality of broadcast, this is getting ridiculous.
-Rangers shorthanded again.
-DUUUUBBBIIII!!!! Shorty, GREAT play by Cally to break up the play and get the puck to Dubi. Rangers back in it.
-Dawes to the sin bin for goalie interference. Rangers were oh so close to tying it up. Dubinsky absolutely taking the game over.
-Game over, Rangers lose 3-2. But I thought we played SUPERBLY after a terrible first period.
-Live blog is over, Ill do a post game wrap in a bit.
Rangers Review | Comments Off
For the first preseason game of the year, the Rangers, sporting by and large 3rd and 4th liners in the NHL, and people who have never played in the NHL in their lives, held up fairly strongly. They did so against a nearly complete Ottawa team who were playing without notables Volchenkov as well as captain Alfredsson. Truth be told, outside of a miserable first period, in which Stephen Valiquette looked like he was still playing golf, the Rangers pretty much owned the play. Several players looked quite good, while several players left a lot to be desired. The latter includes Moore, Rissmiller, Fahey, Sjostrom, Rozsival and Colton Orr. I felt Byers, Prucha, Drury, Dawes and Voros all played good to very good games. The real stand outs were Michael Del Zotto, who didn’t look that out of place (and yes, this is the same pick I have been killing since the day we made it), Marc Staal (who was steady as ever, while showing some willingness to play the offensive game), Ryan Callahan (who threw his body around liberally and was in the middle of every play, and all over the puck on either side of the rink), Mika Wiikman (who pitched a shutout after coming in for Vally), and by far and away Brandon Dubinsky.