Another Pre-hatched Poultry Assumption Error

Let me start with the good news. What an amazing… – just when they needed it – hope affirming – powerful - victory last night at the Garden.

So great to get Drury – our Captain - going again. What a cool shot he made from an impossible angle. And how about Avery shaking that puck lose and then Antropov – playing despite the sore knee- dashing – diving headlong – sliding – extending that long frame – and then poking the puck forward like it was some kind of contact shuffleboard match.

And Hank dominates again. All we ask - night after night - is that he’s the best goalie on the ice. And it’s amazing how often he comes through for us.

All told, we outshot the Habs 44 to 25. In the 2nd period - where we broke it open - we limited them to just 4 “shots on Lunk”. Our PK perfect 3-3 again. And when you score 3 goals the 0-3 PP doesn’t hurt so bad. Still - it would be nice to get a PP goal one of these days.

A loss to Montreal would have nearly finished us off. But the win nearly finishes off the Panthers and Sabres.

But in the midst of all this euphoria - My bad luck karma spider sense is tingling again.

Look. I realize we're just one win away from clinching a you-know-what spot.

I also see that Montreal is reeling and hurting and just one point North of us now in 7th with two easily lose-able games remaining on their schedule (Bruins and Penguins).

And like you - we Blueshirt Brothers also wonder if coach Tortorelli would or should rest Hank on the final game of the regular season IF we've locked up 8th and IF the 7th seed were still possible.

But all I'm saying is – these types of stray thoughts violate two of the most important self-jinxing prevention rules that I live my sports-rooting life by.

1 - These playoff match-up thoughts are “future-value chickens” and as such we should not yet be “assigning numerical values” to them. In other words, I am cautioning everyone against invoking the dreaded bad luck magnet that I call:

Pre-hatched Poultry Assumption Error (more commonly known as: DON’T COUNT OUR CHICKENS BEFORE THEY HATCH).

All I'm saying is, before we start analyzing who we face in the playoffs – let’s beat Philly at home on Thursday and lock this friggin’ thing down.

Because Philly is no pushover and they’re plenty motivated to win because of their own playoff matchup stuff and their general hatred of all things Ranger. And if we don't beat them - things could get very ugly very fast. If Philly wins here it will be all that much harder to beat them on their home ice in the finale. The Panthers could run the table (it’s just a 2 game table now – Atlanta & Washington) and the Sabres are still alive (despite the mysterious “league office” voices Sam Rosen’s keeps hearing in his head)

And yes, I still remember there was a 2nd self-jinxing prevention rule I said I was going to also explain:

2 – BE CAREFUL WHAT YOU WISH FOR. You want Washington instead of Boss-town? (Not you Raymond - we know where you stand - I mean everybody else.) Are you folks sure you want the Caps? I think our best chance of beating the Bruins is in the first round – before they get their playoff legs under them – when they’re still emotionally winded from chasing the most overall points in the league. Because unless someone else beats them for us – our best chance of beating them might be right out of the box.

Anyway – I’m clearly rambling here so will shut this post down.


And let me mention that for about 74 hours I, unfortunately, have to temporarily drop off the grid to an “undisclosed bunker location”. But I’ll be back at Blueshirt Brothers and posting away by Saturday night. In the meantime I leave you (and the Flyers game 1) in the very capable hands of Nugs – who provides much better stuff than I do anyway (even if he thinks "infront" is just one word instead of two). Go Rangers.