Thanks to a helpful member of the HFBoards I was able to catch the Buffalo game. It was a pretty terrible game to watch to be totally honest. It’s a game where the Rangers really didn’t *deserve* to win a laugher. They gave up some good chances, and most of their goals were really lucky and they didn’t generate many quality chances by their play, rather the Buffalo team screwing up.

Tonight was a bit different though, you’d have to say, for the most part, the Rangers outplayed the Devils pretty dramatically.

Sure, you could point to the reffing which was laughably bad (in our favor), but the play on the ice did dictate the score, we deserved to win.

And now, somehow, the Rangers find themselves within 1 point of the #6 spot which they desperately want/need. Rangers need to avoid the Penguins in the first round as much as humanly possible, that team has just way too much talent for us to have to deal with in the first round, even if by some miracle we beat them, you know it would take a helluva lot out of us to do it.

Looking at the schedules you have to think it’s a push between the Isles and Rangers, so the Rangers could easily find themselves finishing behind the suddenly red-hot Isles, but the Sens have a much more difficult schedule, and you could see us surpassing them and getting the Broo-ins in the first round, a much better matchup for us than the Pens, for sure.

Getting back to these 2 games, I think the thing that stands out is how the Rangers, more than anything, are finally getting some bounces go for them, which is leading to confidence, which is leading to more bounces.

That, and Brad Richards has played pretty well, and really it’s not about the goals he’s scored, he just looks better out there…his demeanor, his focus, confidence…everything seems better…I wonder if it’s being the 3rd line center that’s helping him out? Clearly Brassard and Stepan have usurped him as a top 2 center, but as a 3rd liner, Brad Richards has been pretty good. Except you shouldn’t have a 7ish million dollar guy be your 3rd line center.

Meh, whatever, just win!

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Just got home to watch the game, start it up, and apparently Comcast believes that NY Rangers VS Buffalo really means Tampa Bay vs Oakland baseball.

FML

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You can pretty much count on 1 thing this shortened season.

The Rangers will be inconsistent on any given night. This is completely different than the always-show-up squad that played last year, and, quite frankly, it’s maddening to watch.

This was showcased in spades tonight, and it was, again, pretty damn annoying. The Rangers won a game 6-1, but it wasn’t a 6-1 game for most of the night, it was just a 5 minute stretch at the end where the Panthers just mailed it in, but aside from that, you’d have to say this was a pretty even game.

When the Rangers are playing against this mediocre of a team, an “even” game is pretty much unacceptable.

But expected.

Right?

I mean, we’ve seen this all year long, Bryzga…err….sleep through a period or 2, then wake up and hope that 1 or 2 periods (or in this case, 5-10 minutes really) of showing up is good enough.

Against the Panthers, it is. Against a better team? No. Sabres will be a better test, and I’m not at all optimistic based on what I saw tonight.

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I really really really want to be happy about this win.

Really.

I swear.

But I’m finding it really tough to be happy about a win where, let’s be honest, we were dominated for most of the game. It took another superhuman performance by Henrik Lundqvist to get the 2 points.

Undeserved?

Yeah, probably.

But, did I scream my frikkin head off when Dan Girardi put it unnecessarily in the top corner when he had half the damn net to shoot at because Nabakov was totally out of position?

You damn right I did.

Still though, it was a little annoying, the tone of the game was pretty much completely dictated by the Islanders. They hunted down pucks, they pursued it, they controlled the play, we just reacted and hoped to cash in if we’re lucky… Know what this game reminded me of? Nearly every single playoff game over the past 3 years. Why is it John Tortorella coached Rangers teams seems to fall into this, hang on for dear life and hope to win the game 1-0 after your goalie has an incredible game playoff mentality? It’s really effing annoying. We’re a lot better than this, and yet it seems like when the chips go down, this team becomes far more reactive rather than proactive. They get the game taken to them, they don’t take the game to the other team. It’s sickening to be totally honest.

I’ll take it, but I’m not happy, not at all. Nor should you be.

Let’s use the remaining relatively easy schedule to get our game back, the past few have been….annoying, to say the least.

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Gonna be super short here, just got back from a game then I watched the recording of the game tonight.

I felt the Rangers really had a ton of great scoring chances but couldn’t hit the net worth a damn, how many chances did they flat out miss the net on? Yikes.

Good for Zucc getting that goal, he needed it, kid has played really well and isn’t getting rewarded on the scoresheet. On the flip side Brad Richards was god-awful tonight, even though he did have a few good chances, that just shows you how awful a guy is, when he has 2 or 3 high quality chances but still deserves to be benched.

Yuck.

Ryane Clowe has come screaming back down to Earth. Guy doesn’t do much of all out there, had a nice fight, but how many chances does he actually develop for his team in a game? 0? 1? Not seeing much at all from him since that first game. And he wants 8 years at 6 mil per? Hahahahahahahaha

Carl Hagelin seems to have his feet directly attached to his confidence. When the kid believes in himself, he goes into another gear, a gear nobody in the NHL can catch. Luckily, when he’s off his game, he’s still faster than everyone in the NHL. Go figure.

Rick Nash was awfully quiet tonight, few good moves here and there, but aside from that, not much, Toronto did a good job shutting him down.

That’s all, off to bed zzzzzzzzzzzzzzz.

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Gonna be short here because it’s late and I have to wake up really early tomorrow.

The Rangers played a pretty sloppy game, but luckily, so did the Leafs. Unfortunately, we were just a little more sloppy than they were.

This comes down to a few mistakes the Rangers made, coupled with hitting 2 posts (but getting back 2 miraculous non-goals on a post and a stuff in save by Stralman), and a broken stick by Stepan. Some things went against us this game, some things went for us this game. All in all, we probably deserved to lose, but it could have gone either way.

You gotta point the finger at the D-pair of MDZ and Girardi though, those 2 were horrific all night long, no way else you can put it, those 2 cost us the game with some really bad positioning.

Nash and Stepan continue on their torrid pace, scoring huge goals for this team, but, to be fair, playing mediocre defensively as well (yes, you can call out a player even when they play a good game offensively).

I think Torts let this team off the hook a bit with his post game comments, but it is what it is guys, the Rangers gotta come back strong on Wednesday.

Speaking of, I’ve got plans on Wednesday night, so if I do get a chance to do a wrap, it’ll be super late, and also super short like this one, sorry, real life can sometimes get in the way

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You want to know why having a power play that can score you a goal every once in a while is so damn important? Because on a night like tonight, you can actually pick up 2 points, rather than 0 or 1. That’s what separates the Rangers of now from the Rangers of early in the season. On a night when they aren’t at their best…on a night when Henrik Lundqvist plays maybe the best game of his career, the Rangers win it thanks to…..*gasp*….their power play.

Somehow, the Rangers are clicking at an absurd 50% clip the last 3 games. This is despite losing one of the best power play guys in the league in Marian Gaborik.

Go figure.

I think this speaks more to what Brad Richards and MZA are doing rather than anything else. Brad Richards is FINALLY playing at an elite level again, and it’s making waves throughout the entire team. Nash is going, Callahan is going, Richards is going, and of course, Henrik Lundqvist went into God-Mode tonight.

The important thing though is the Rangers can’t go back to the 1 or 2 period games that we saw early in the season. Play like shit for 2 periods, play great for 1, hope you win.

No.

HELL NO.

I want to see the team we saw against the Penguins for 6 dominating periods. I want to see the Rangers team from the 2nd period against the Canes. I don’t want to see a team on its heels, I want to see a team on it’s toes, attacking the opposition, HITTING the opposition. I want to see them play better. The leafs are up next, and the Rangers are going to be in a position to start making a run at a much higher seed, maybe even 5th. That would be pretty huge for us, since we play so much better at home, and the higher you are ranked, the better the chances of getting more home games later in the playoffs.

By the way, after having to hear the god-awful mind numbingly stupid duo that the Penguins have calling their games, getting to hear the Canes announcers was pretty much a gift from God….those 2 guys call a pretty fair game.

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Don’t look at the scoreboard. Read this. This was pretty much an identical game to the one at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers flat out dominated the Pittsburgh Penguins. It wasn’t even close. How on earth this wasn’t another 6-1 obliteration is beyond me. The Rangers didn’t just have good scoring chances, they had good scoring chances put in positions to go in the net. Give Fleury a helluva lot of credit, he probably just played the greatest game he’s ever played, or ever will play. This was a brilliant goaltending performance by MAF to salvage 2 points that the Penguins had no business getting.

Read my fingers. We were the better team. It’s a gross injustice that the Rangers only got 1 point in this one. They deserved better, and frankly I haven’t been this upbeat about the team in a long while (all year?). They looked really hungry out there. Maybe it’s just the new blood, but I loved what I saw. Fire, passion, determination, sacrifice.

This is a team I can be proud of supporting.

Now don’t screw it up by shitting the bed against the Canes. We need 2 points against a team playing some God-awful hockey. Get 2 points, and pick up 7 out of 8 points and get us going on a roll.

Just keep it going boys, we’re close to turning this season around. Don’t move that foot off the pedal. Don’t have a letdown game. I want to see this hunger again. Keep it going.

Rick Nash was a monster tonight, played a terrific game, scored the lone goal, and had a ton of other chances. As did Stepan. But to me the unsung heroes were probably Richards and Brassard who both played terrific hockey, and did an excellent job setting up their linemates. Brian Boyle should have had 2 goals tonight. I’d love to blame him, but really, his shots were good, on net, and in a position where the goalie had to make great stops to deny him. problem is, he did.

Tip your hat to Fleury, he was great, but make no mistake about it, if the Rangers keep playing like this, look out.

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I didn’t write a post about the Rangers trading away Gaborik for 1 reason and 1 reason only. I was PISSED. I was so pissed in fact that I decided to go out with my wife and have a nice dinner to take my mind off of things.

It helped.

A lot.

I then got home and proceeded to watch the Rangers absolutely dismantle the best team in hockey.

What the hell?

Yep. The new look Rangers just dominated a team fresh off a 15 game winning streak. But, let’s be honest here folks. The Penguins looked horrendous tonight. How much of that was us? How much of that was playing back to backs? How much of that was not having Crosby, Letang, Martin or a 100% Malkin in the lineup? I’m not sure, but whatever it was, the Penguins looked slow, they looked passive, they looked like a team that couldn’t care less about playing a hockey game. On the flip side the Rangers looked eager, they looked hungry, they looked to make a play and take the body rather than be passive and reactive. What I liked was that the 4th line really set the tone early with a nice long hard shift of typical Torts grinding hockey. Wear the other team down, then wait for their goalie to have a meltdown.

Oh, did I mention how happy I was to see MAF in net for the Pens rather than Vokoun? Vokoun>>>>Fleury….just my 2 cents anyway.

Don’t think this is it, that the season has turned around, that we’re going to do a Kings like stampede to a championship. 1 game does not a season make. Remember the game against the Flyers? That’s a game you should really think long and hard about…and how we looked god-awful for the next 120 minutes of hockey we were forced to endure.

Biggest different to me, was not the play of Brassard, who looked terrific. Nor was it the play of Clowe, who looked terrificer. No, to me it was the play of John Moore that really stood out. Maybe it’s because I’m so sick of seeing Roman Hamrlik plod up and down the ice, but seeing a kid who looks a little like Anton Stralman back there really brought a smile to my face. Kid is mobile, looks like he can carry the puck up, and plays well in his own zone. A SIGNIFICANT upgrade over Roman Hamrlik (as you would expect when you give up a player of Marian Gaboriks talent).

Make no mistake though folks, the best player in the trade today left our team, it didn’t join our team. I just hope that Richards can find his game and that the parts continue to click beyond a 1-hit wonder that this has all the makings of being. Keep it going, make me a believer…I dare you.

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