Chris Drury must have been reading the message boards. Seriously, it was remarkable how focused and “on” he looked tonight. From the opening drop of the puck, which shortly there after included a flukey goal, all the way till the very end of this game, Drury was playing his usual 2-way game to perfection, and he actually played the offensive zone effectively. In a role reversal here tonight, it was the combination of Naslund and Drury that lifted up an absolutely atrocious (and that is being kind) performance by Nikolai Zherdev, who played about as bad a game as I have ever witnessed from a professional hockey player without actually lumberjacking someones face a-la Chris Simon. Zherdev turned the puck over with a blind behind the back pass that was a perfect tape to tape pass…to the wrong team, 5 feet from his goalie. That wasn’t all Zherdev did wrong, on top of having a handful of boneheaded turnovers, he also had a few terrible penalties (yes, I felt both were legit), and was more or less invisible in the offensive zone with the exception of his shot that led to Drurys goal (and netted him an assist). Zherdev better learn that you need to come to play every night, and that crap like what we saw last night will never be tolerated in Rangerland.

On the positive side of things, Gomez, Drury, Naslund, and Lundqvist all looked spectacular. That is how this team is supposed to be built, the big money players, actually playing like big money players. Lundqvist was absolutely spectacular, keeping a game close that could have turned to an Islander blowout really quickly. He was about as spectacular as we have ever seen him, sans Dallas last year. Naslund was also active in all 3 zones, and generated a few scoring chances. Gomez was absolutely flying, even making his 3rd line wingers look halfway decent in the process. However I still stand by my now weeks long assessment, that this team is best served with Gomez, Drury and Naslund all playing on the same line. Their games are very complimentary, and I feel they give us a line we can be pretty happy about in terms of matching up with some of the better top lines in the league.

The Rangers are now a surprising 9-2-1 so far this season, and have equaled the greatest start in franchise history at this point of the season. You can’t help but be happy with the results, but what is far more interesting here is that this club is nowhere near, not even remotely near clicking on all cylinders yet. They are probably playing about 65-75% of their optimal playing capacity right now, particularly in terms of their forecheck and passing. Once they start approaching 90-95%, then we will be seeing something really special. A team that can skate, a team that is elite defensively, and a team with one of the best goalies on the planet.

Yowza.

That’s all from me for tonight, its nearly 5am, and I am exhausted. See everyone on Thursday.

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It seemed to me, when watching Nikolai Zherdevs game tying snipe shot that in the time between Zherdev looking up, and releasing his shot, the game must have slowed down to Matrix like proportions. It seemed like when Zherdev got the puck on his stick, he had time to pick out every single possible shooting angle, he had time to measure the ambient wind speed, to calculate air drag on his shot, and put the precise amount of mustard on the shot to beat Fleury cleanly. Or, he just ripped a perfect shot top shelf. Whatever, it was freaking beautiful.

Zherdev helped the Rangers pick up 2 very important points by putting that one home. It was a game the Rangers deserved to win much more than the Penguins, but the Penguins still managed to pick up a point, and almost 2. The Rangers pretty much out played the Pens from the time the puck dropped. Sure, the Pens had a few spurts of dominance, but all in all it seemed the Rangers were generating more chances than the Pens were, and that Fleury, and some bad luck, was the only reason the Rangers were trailing in this one.

Both goals given up by Henrik were fluke jobs. First a puck redirects off of 2 Rangers players perfectly into the net, almost like it was a scene from Angels in the outfield or something, and then a puck that was about to be cleared out of the zone took a wicked strange bounce off the boards right to the stick of a Penguins player, and that led to Crosbys put back goal. The Rangers also had a goal taken away when the ref blew the whistle far too early when Scotty Gomez put home a loose puck early in the 5 on 3, only to have it called back.

Both of the Rangers goals were what you would call legit goals, one coming on the power play….finally, where Naslund took a perfect pass from Gomez to beat Fleury 5-hole, and the other coming on the previously mentioned super snipe job. The game winner in the shootout though appeared to be a flubbed backhand that somehow found it’s way into the back of the net seeing-eye style, but still very much legit.

The Rangers can also point squarely at the man between the pipes as the main reason we picked up 2 points here tonight. To call Henrik brilliant is to do him no justice whatsoever, particularly in the overtime where he made 3 miraculous saves within 2 minutes, robbing Fedatenko on the doorstep, robbing Crosby on the doorstep, and snatching a point shot that redirected up into the glove side corner right before it crossed the line. Henrik Lundqvist was definitely the #1 star in this game, despite Zherdevs heroics, and was rewarded as such after the game.

Petr Prucha also continues to play superb hockey despite not being able to put anything home. He helped draw the power play that led to the Rangers first goal, and he was all over the ice causing havoc by aggressively forechecking. In my personal opinion, Dawes, Fritsche, and Rissmiller should be the ones sitting out, while Korpikoski and Prucha need to be the ones playing.

Despite the win though, I still am not happy with the lines. I stand by my assertion that Gomez needs to play with Drury and Naslund full time to work out their kinks, while Zherdev, Voros and Dubinsky need to be reunited.

Regardless, the Rangers are now 8-2-1, banking important points early in the season, which will help to offset the inevitable week or 2 of putrid play that will come in the middle of the season. This is why a fast start is so important, then you aren’t playing catch up later on in the season, you are simply getting back on track.

I will miss Monday’s game in the Mausoleum because I myself have a game….also in a mausoleum like rink. Regardless, I will watch it as soon as I get back home. See you then!

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That’s the phrase isn’t it? You can’t go home again? Something like that? Well the Blue Jackets sure as hell wished Nikolai Zherdev had followed that old adage and never showed up last night. Instead the 23 year old Rangers sniper had arguably his best game as a Ranger, notching 2 primary assists and a goal to ice the Blue Jackets late in the 3rd. It was a really impressive night for Zherdev, particularly with just how putrid his two linemates were. Chris Drury and Markus Naslund had, in my opinion, their worst games (offensively) as Rangers. Drury and Naslund were constantly out of synch, neither could read off of the other with any degree of accuracy, and the 2 of them just held back Zherdev big time.

I was for the change and moving Zherdev to their line, but after that performance, it seems to me to be a waste of Zherdevs talent to put him with those 2. The Playstation line once again produced on the Power Play while the Naslund Gomez Drury trio have done less than nothing with their time on the ice…speaking of..

I think it seems clear, based on pretty measurable ways, that the 3 best forwards for the Rangers, thus far, have been the 3 kids on the Playstation line (Voros Dubi, Zherdev). Separate, together, power play, even strength, whatever, these 3 seem to be our 3 best forwards just about every single game. So wouldn’t it make sense to you that when you are a man up, you want the 3 players who are your best players. Not the 3 players who SHOULD be your best players, not the 3 players who are making the most money, but the 3 players who actually PLAY the best. Makes sense doesn’t it? (i hope) So why is it that on each and every Power Play that we have, the Rangers always start the trio of Naslund, Gomez, and Drury, who usually have extreme problems even getting into the zone to set up offensively. Then after those 3 do nada for 90 seconds, the Rangers switch up to the playstation line, who generate all kinds of offensive pressure, but only get 20-30 seconds of power play chance with which to make things happen.

The Rangers forwards have scored 6 power play goals. 5 legit ones, and Zherdev scored one literally as a power play expired. Of those 6 goals, 1 was by Zherdev, 2 are by Dubi, and 2 are by Voros. The other 1 was the super easy goal that Naslund put in against the Stars.

That trio has accounted for just about all the offense on the PP that our forwards have produced, and yet Naslund, Drury and Gomez just about double them on PPTOI (here is the link http://www.nhl.com/ice/playerstats.htm?fetchKey=20092NYRAASAll&sort=powerPlayTimeOnIce&viewName=timeOnIce )

Does this make any sense at all to you guys? Because I sure as hell don’t get it. It just boggles the mind as to why their superb play isn’t being further exploited by Tom Renney.

But, I digress. Speaking of Renney, I am glad to hear that he is doing just fine after getting thumped on the top of his head with an errant stick. I was actually a little worried there for a while because they said on the air that he had lost control of his arms and legs, as if he was showing symptoms of partial paralysis rather than concussion symptoms. I am not like Renney all the time, and I sure as hell don’t get what he does out there most of the time, I definitely respect the guy, and what he has done for this club, and yes, I really was worried and am glad he is ok.

This game though, was not a pretty game for the Rangers. They certainly tried hard, and weren’t lazy or anything, and as usual was superb in their own zone, but they didn’t have the same kind of buzzing attack they showed earlier in the season. I am not sure where the hell that has gone to, but I want it back damn it. The lack of chemistry of these lines were pretty obvious to me, so much so that I expected them to be changed up right away.

Speaking of lines, I want to leave you with one last thing. I hate the lines as constructed. Here is how I would make the lines, and how I would spread out the ice time.

Voros - Dubinsky - Zherdev (22-25 minutes)
Naslund - Gomez - Drury (18-20 minutes)
Prucha - Korpikoski - Callahan (12-15 minutes)
Sjostrom - Betts - Orr (4-8 minutes)

But hey, that’s just me. See you tomorrow for a huge game. Rangers take on the Pens in a rematch of the 2nd round matchup from last season. I am really looking forward to seeing this one.

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The only thing worse than watching my Rangers lose to a team on their home ice, is to do so while ailing a hurt ankle. After coming home from my game last night where my ankle got destroyed by a guy twice my size (trust me, thats saying something…I’m a big boy) I got to watch the Rangers sleep walk through their final game in this 7-11 stretch. I was very upset that Rangers fans booed Sean Avery out there, because that made no sense whatsoever to me. Here is a guy who bled Rangers blue, who said repeatedly how much he wanted to stay a Ranger, who had a love affair with the fans, and would go and chat it up with the people in the 400’s, and you boo him?! For what? For being unceremoniously kicked out by a Rangers team who would fit his style of play perfectly? For saying a few off color remarks about the team? THIS IS SEAN AVERY FOR CHRISTS SAKE! If you were expecting him to be all lovey dovey after being kicked off the team, you were sadly mistaken. If I were there at MSG, you would be seeing one Ranger fan give Sean Avery a standing ovation, and a guy who would cheer him every time he touched the puck. I loved what Avery brought to this team, and loved the way he played the game. I don’t give a crap about how he was off the ice, but on the ice he was a joy to watch.

Besides the Avery stuff, this game saw a tired Rangers team not show up for an entire game. A team who lost to a reeling Dallas club on a day when it wouldn’t have taken much to pick up 2 points, like for example getting shots on net instead of shooting them 10 feet wide everytime. On Friday this excuse of being tired no longer holds water (though the rusty excuse might be used for all we know) so I will give them a grudging pass on this. But the team just didn’t skate out there. They are a faster team than the Stars by a country mile, and yet they looked slow and uninterested for long stretches of this game.

One thing that continues to bug me is how Drury Naslund and Gomez have still not been reunited. You can directly point to Gomez falling ill as the turning point for that line, now that Gomez is healthy again, you have to see what they have in them, that trio would really help bring some more offense to this club, which it is sorely lacking. Another thing that really bugged me last night was that Patrick Rissmiller was playing. Why exactly? I have no idea, but this guy is absolutely worthless, thank god the Rangers finally waived him off this club. He isn’t fast, he isn’t strong, he isn’t a defensive stalwart, he has no offensive game. He is a 13th forward playing as a 3rd liner in an important game (Every game is important in the NHL nowadays). In my personal opinion even using him once is one time too many, let alone the 2 or 3 games he has been in. Now the question is, what to do with Fritsche, Prucha and Korpikoski? The simple answer would be to put Korpedo down, and use Prucha and Fritsche in an even rotation. If you play well, you keep playing, if not, the next guy goes in, and so on and so forth. But that really isn’t the best answer, since in my personal opinion Korpedo is the better player of the three. I think the Rangers need to make a trade, and do so now. Probably for a reserve defenseman. The team would be far better off trading Prucha or Fritsche for a capable #7 defenseman, and then playing Korpedo and using the player left over as a reserve forward. That to me would be the proper way to run the team. I don’t know of many teams who have zero reserve defenseman. Defense is a position that you should have some depth in because of injuries.

Well, the team is off till Friday, they better be ready to play, because these past few games have made me a little worried on the direction of this team. Things seem to be moving further apart rather than tightening up. That is not a good sign.

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All I read on the message boards is how upset everyone is about the reffing. About how the refs blew the too many men on the ice call, about how that call cost us the game. All I can say to that is…meh.

Yeah, it was a marginal call, and yeah, it probably did cost us this game, but you know what? I don’t really care. We came out of Detroit, playing against one of the best teams ever assembled (even without Zetterberg and Chelios) and got a point. You know what? I will take that 99 times out of 100. Frankly, I came into this game expecting to get absolutely destroyed. Their offensive is better than ours, their forwards are bigger than ours, their forwards are just as fast if not faster than ours, their defense is better than ours…basically the only place we are better than them is between the pipes, and even then we really didn’t get good goaltending tonight anyway. Oh, I am not faulting Henrik for this game, really only 1 of the goals would I pin on him, the rebound goal he gave up on a soft shot he should have handled cleanly, but Henrik was off his game all night. He was fighting the puck big time, and had real trouble picking up the puck with any consistency whatsoever. Also, I still think the guy should switch to a more flexible glove, I hate the fact that he uses the super stiff glove to give the shooters less to shoot at.

Anyway, getting back on topic, the Rangers played fairly well against the Red Wings for stretches. When the puck was in the Wings zone the Rangers did a great job of cycling the puck and generating pressure, the real problem though was whenever the Wings had the puck, particularly in the offensive zone, we had no answer for them whatsoever. They held the puck on a string, and frequently caused us to dump and change, rather than dump and chase. They out chanced us by what seemed like a fairly large margin, and they held the real quality chances against to a minimum. Osgood was Osbad between the pipes, giving up a few super softies to Voros and Rozsival, but really, that is how Detroit wins, they don’t need good goaltending, their skaters are second to none…and again, this is without Zetterberg and Chelios…yikes.

Still though, you play against the Wings, in their building, on the second day of a back to back, after playing a game that went into a shootout the night before, and still manage to escape with a point? In my book, thats a win.

Guys, take these points and run, because this team is NOT talented enough to take a point against a team like this very often. Next up, Sean Averys return to Dallas, which I will miss because of my own game Monday night. Thank God for TIVO.

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So far this season there is really only one thing I can point to as a big time problem for this club, and it can be summed up in two words. Markus Naslund. Naslund has really brought down the level of production on every line he has played on. From the power play to even strength, from the first line to the third line, Markus is absolutely killing this team with his play. And really, it is all a production of one thing. Naslund is a really good guy, and really wants to badly fit in with this teammates. In short, he is overpassing. The guys is as skilled a sniper as there is in the NHL today, and he is passing up glorious scoring chance after glorious scoring chance. Basically the guy is not playing Markus Naslund hockey, and it showed yet again today. Instead of sneaking around the perimeter getting himself open for a quick shot, he is parking his ass in front of the net, he is playing behind the net, and he is looking at his linemates before he looks at the goal. Bad. Bad. Bad.

Now you guys know me, I absolutely 100% believe in guys going to the net, what I don’t believe is snipers playing like power forwards (or passers), or passers playing like scorers (Gomez). Naslund should be around the net, but off to the side, between the circles, moving around trying to get open and unleash that wicked wrist shot when he gets it. He needs to keep moving, side to side, in and out, all over the place, and just rip that shot. And yes, he needs to crash the net on a goal mouth scramble, but he should not park himself in front of the net as he did a few times tonight, that is not his game. He was playing on a line with Dan Fritsche, a much more “gruntish” type player who could easily park his butt in front of the net, and on top of that he was playing with Chris Drury who has made a living scoring goals within 5 feet of the goal mouth.

So that leads us to the conundrum. How do you get an unselfish player to become more selfish? How do you get a guy who is clearly trying hard to make his linemates look good to instead make himself look good? I think this falls on Tom Renney. First and foremost I would move him off the power play and instead move Ryan Callahan in his spot. Why Callahan? Because Cally has absolutely no problems whatsoever in shooting the puck. Any place, any time, Cally will shoot it. He may not have the best shot on the team, but he is willing to shoot the puck.

That is really my only problem in tonights game. Outside of that I felt the Rangers played a very intelligent game. They weren’t good, not by any stretch of the imagination, but what they were was intelligent. They played smart, not hard. When they can combine the 2, then you will see something lethal. They kept everything to the outside, they made the Leafs skate a full 200 feet, they didn’t have too many egregious turnovers, they didn’t take too many penalties, and they played quite well in front of their goalie. What they didn’t do though is to work hard as well. They didn’t put near enough pressure on Toskala, tossing up several weak chances in the first 2 period, and not really maintaining any sort of a forecheck whatsoever. They seemed to get stronger as the game wore on, but they still looked rather….not there…for the most part. I put some blame on Renney who instead of shuffling around just the 3rd line, decided to realign the first and third lines in an effort to jump start the club. I think (like my buddy Eric from the NY Rangers Cast) that the club is best served by leaving the trio of Naslund Gomez and Drury together on even strength. Change it around during the PP, but at even strength, give them every opportunity to work out their problems. Play with the third line however you see fit Tom, but I don’t think it helps to split those 3 up without giving them every opportunity to fix themselves.

Finally the talk of this game was Stephen Valliquette, who did have a very strong game, but let’s face it, the Rangers didn’t give up very many quality chances against. Vally really just had to make some very average saves to pick up the win. Twice the Leafs had wide open nets but whiffed on shots or shot them out and out wide. Vally was exactly what you need from your backup. Solid. The team in front of him was quite good in keeping things to the outside (for the most part) which really helped out spider-man big time.

Rangers now get to play the defending champs in their building. I wouldn’t expect much from this one guys, the Rangers look to be getting less and less effective offensively as this brutal beginning part of their season starts to come to an end. I really hope Henrik comes up with a masterful performance, because he is going to need to against that team, Chelios or no Chelios.

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Sorry for the delay, yesterdays debate and post debate coverage kept me busy till 3am, then I hit the sack. Anyway, I think this was a good, and important loss for the Rangers to suffer. I think something like this was just what the doctor ordered. Why? Because it is important to be humbled and be brought back down to earth when your ego gets too high. The Rangers, like they did after they went up 4-0, and like they have done for a multitude of long stretches this year, failed to play hockey once they took an early lead. After the Rangers went up 1-0 they simply stopped playing their game. They stopped aggressively forechecking, they stopped playing defense as a 5 man unit, they made sloppy passes, skated lazily (none more glaring than the guy wearing the C on Vaneks breakaway), and out and out showed little passion for a game they are so handsomely rewarded to play.

When you start to win a bunch of games in a row while not giving it your best, you need to nice kick in the balls to wake your ass up. So let me say this loud and clear for the Rangers to hear this. YOU ARE NOT TALENTED/GOOD ENOUGH TO SHOW UP AND WIN HOCKEY GAMES FELLAS, YOU NEED TO WORK YOUR ASSES OFF FOR 60 MINUTES TO PICK UP THE W. I hope that clears things up for them.

Though there might be one negative that comes out of this, I fear Tom Renney may already start to juggle the lines and possibly dismantle a highly successful 2nd line after only 1 bad game for the trio. That makes no sense whatsoever. Sure, do it in the game to wake up the team, but leave those guys alone for the future games, give them at least 5 bad games in a row before you break them up.

The Rangers 3 goals given up were all a result of poor defensive play or discipline. Blair Betts knocked in a puck into his own net, Chris Drury was lazy and didn’t skate back to cover a wide open Vanek for a shorty, and Paul Mara took a selfish penalty when he preferred to settle a grudge at the expense of his own team. That is not good hockey, more importantly, that is not smart hockey, and even more important than that, that is not Rangers hockey (this year). We need to be hard on the puck, we need to skate hard, and play in your face hockey. In short we need to be what Buffalo was last night, rather than what New York was last night.

I sincerely hope Tom Renney is putting the team through the paces today, a humbling loss is only a good loss if the team is kicked in the ass afterwards to get themselves straightened out.

That’s all for today, see you guys tomorrow night.

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After having a full 24+ hours to digest the Cherepanov situation, I still find myself quite disheartened by the situation. And yet life must go on and we must continue rooting for our team. As such I decided to go ahead and put this up finally. In their most impressive victory of the season, the Rangers played a superb New Jersey Devils team and still managed to continue their thus far perfect season. Part of this is directly attributable to what I was pointing to be the Devils potential achilles heal this year…Uncle Daddy. Yet again against the Rangers Uncle Daddy gave up an extremely soft goal on a flutter shot that was going wide. Dubinsky got what is likely to be his easiest goal of the season when he fired a shot that was immediately tipped and started to flutter well wide of the goal. Uncle Daddy tried to play the puck, and instead redirected it into his own net. Doh!

But that was not the end of the second lines dominance this evening. Once again the Rangers second line lead the way with a superb performance from all 3 players. Zherdev picked himself up an assist, and ripped a shot just wide and overpassed one time too many on a 2 on 1 (meaning hes getting his chances, they are going to start going in the net, trust me on that), and Dubinsky had a 3 point game netting the weak goal, and getting 2 assists on the evening. But the real story lies with Aaron Voros, a guy whom I absolutely killed this preseason. Well, thus far Voros is making me look exactly like what he is sticking in Uncle Daddys face in that picture above. An ass. But hey, I much prefer being wrong this way, than being wrong the other (ie predicting a players greatness only for him to fall flat on his face). Thus far Aaron Voros has helped solidify one of the best lines in the league during the infancy of this season by providing size, and a crease crashing presence to assist in his two very skilled and active linemates. This trios dominance has certainly helped us more or less gloss over the fact that the first line of Gomez Drury and Naslund have looked out and out putrid since coming back from Europe. I’m not sure what exactly happened to these 3, but during the euro trip they looked like world beaters, and right now they look about as effective as our 4th line…which is funny considering the 4th line has the same amount of goals (2) as the first line. The problem seems to be Gomez to me. It seems like his linemates are trying to set him up a little more than the other way around. Naslund again seems scared to shoot the puck, and Drury isn’t burying his chances, and both of them are looking to pass to Gomez and make him take the shot. On this team there is only 1 person I trust less to score a goal than Scotty Gomez, and that is Colton Orr. Gomez needs to play to his strength, and his linemates need to start being more selfish. The entire point of putting 2 shooters with a passer is for the passer to pass, and the shooters to shoot, not to have the 3 of them play this game bass ackwards.

Finally Henrik Lundqvist continues his dominating start to this season, completely laying waste to the concerns we had before the season started on the condition of his knees. Henrik hasn’t just been brilliant, he has been a brick wall. His team around him hasn’t always played as responsible as they should, and Henrik is being forced to make some pretty difficult saves on a consistent basis. Right now he is bailing out his teammates, but they better clamp down in their own end, they have way too many long stretches where they forget the word defense altogether.

All in all this season looks almost identical to the start we had last season with one massive difference. Pucks are going in the net. Last season we played well enough to start the season 10-2, but were flailing about at the bottom of the league. The Rangers have gotten themselves off to a strong start which will help a ton when they have a terrible week or two, which they always have, and have it be an equalizer to this start, rather than a hole they have to dig themselves out of.

See you tomorrow against the Sabres.

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I am extremely late on this and I apologize for that. I was at my accountants from early morning to shortly after 6:00pm est. When I got home just in time to watch the game today they announced that Cherepanov had passed away. I am still unclear as to what happened, but in the end, does it matter? A young man with an extremely bright future was robbed from hockey fans across the world. I am numb right now, and am extremely dismayed at this news. Chere, Ranger fans across the planet mourn for you, few more than this one.

Out of respect to Alexei, and my personal feelings on this matter, I’m going to leave this up, and do my post game wrap sometime tomorrow, probably late-ish. Yes, I watched the game, and have lots of thoughts on what happened, but we can talk about that another time. This loss trumps any win the Rangers could have in my personal opinion.

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My apologies for the lateness of this writeup. After last night’s game, I had work related stuff to do which pretty much carried me till an ungodly hour, so I didn’t get time to do this then.

Last night the Rangers continued their perfect start to their season with a far from perfect display out there. It was a scene we have witnessed many times as Ranger fans (or hockey fans in general), where your team comes out like gangbusters (or vice versa) makes the opposing team look like a bunch of thumb sucking 2 year olds, only to take the foot off the pedal in the last 2 periods and barely hold on to a win that should not have been so difficult. This was the first regular season game where you can say for the majority of the game, the Flyers actually outplayed us. We had the best of them, by far, in the first period, but after that it was all Philly, and if not for a stellar performance by Vally in net, the Rangers may have gone through another humiliating Canadiens type choke job. Luckily though, they didn’t. They certainly played well enough to win, which is why I think they deserve the 2 points here. But they did not play this new style of Rangers hockey in the final 40 minutes of this game. Rather than being aggressive on the puck, they seemed far more passive. They allowed the Flyers to cross into the neutral zone without any pressure whatsoever. This is not how we have been so successful to start the season. We start by pressuring them the second they touch the puck, force them to make good play after good play after good play. If they can make it up the ice with short passes with out guys all over them, then you tip your hat and move on. We let it be far too easy for them to bring the puck up the ice, and that is where the snowball started to fall downhill. Once they gained the neutral zone, they would dump, chase, and cycle us to death. They did it almost the entire second period, with some very long sustained pressure put on some very small forwards who depend on speed and a swarm mentality to defend, but which can be very tiring for sustained shifts.

But the real story about last night was about the goaltending. Big Vally was absolutely superb. He gave up 3 goals, but he stopped at least a half dozen gimme goals with some very good positional goaltending. Vally is a rather slow and clunky goalie, but he is a huge and sound positionally. You need to get him moving side to side to get goals on him (or rip a really nasty shot right off the faceoff win, man that was pretty), and the Flyers didn’t do enough of that, instead they got in tight and crashed the net and tried to bang home rebounds. It definitely works in theory, but for a goalie as large as Vally, you’re almost playing to his strengths, because in tight he gives you less to shoot at because of his size, and it’s tough to power pucks through him like that. I never question a crash the net philosophy, but I still think the key to beating Vally is moving him side to side with cross passes, even if they are up high. So just do a cross ice pass, have your point man shoot it off the pass, and then crash the net. Instead they brought the puck down low, and shot it in a methodical manner, rather than while he was on the move. Regardless, the point of this blog isn’t to give the opposing team tips, it’s to talk about what I saw. The Flyers however got horrendous goaltending by Biron, who looked absolutely lost on Sjostroms wrap around goal (that was pathetic), and simply wasn’t sharp from the onset.

In the end though, I will take the 2 points. Generally speaking when you look at a game and see the Rangers taking the foot off the pedal the way they did, you would probably expect a scathing review over here. But I’m not going to go overboard. They are still 4-0, they are still playing quite well, and they still have all the ingredients to be successful. Take the W and move along.

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