Something I have been meaning to discuss for awhile now. The rangers penalty kill. The #1 penalty kill unit in the NHL. Something the MSG guys harp on every game. Something the rangers players talk about as their greatest strength and "weapon".For me, this is a huge problem. It's a huge problem when your teams greatest weapon, is a defensive action. Don't get me wrong, I LOVE having the best penalty kill in the NHL. But I'd much rather have the best power play. I am sick of hearing this team talk about falling back on their penalty kill to win games. I find the rangers penalty kill, to be about as imposing as this smurf I found here off to the left.
Weapons, or a team's greatest asset, are things that are to be feared. Things the other team has to alter their games to combat. In past seasons, going into a big game, the other team HAD to control jagr. They had to put their top defenseman on him, and they knew even that might not get the job done if jagr was in the zone. And then they know if Jagr lights them up for 2 goals, well that might be the game because Hank isn't allowing 3. There was a mental edge for the rangers going into the game. Where is the mental edge now?
What does a team say in it's pregame warmups, "Guys, whatever we do, let's NOT draw penalties! We don't want to have a man advantage the whole game because then they will get to use their penalty kill unit! Which scores about one goal every 10-11 games!"
The rangers greatest "weapon" brings about no fear in their opponents, and doesn't cause them to alter the game they want to play AT ALL. This troubles me.
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Of course it would be great to score more goals - but the Ranger PK is what is keeping us in these games when we can't score. We know from personal experience how demoralizing it is to not score on PP after PP. So when our PK team does that to an opponent they start to feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteIt's not bad that we're good at PK. It's bad we can't score.
The PK becomes a huge asset if we could ever get the friggin' lead. Right now all it's doing is keeping us close.
This team needs a game changing goal scorer - someone who, as Nugman said, opponents need to game plan for.
But then, what team doesn't need one of those?
(And someone please get Papa Smurf to put a shirt on - the little dude clearly never works out - and we just don't need to see that)
I'm not saying our penalty kill can't be a great asset. It is, and I do love the way theose guys play, especially betts and sjostrom, and to a lesser extent drury upfront. But it's just worrisome for me in a potential playoff series that our greatest threat, is something that doesn't score. Defense is one thing, but our best weapon is us being down a man?
ReplyDeleteI miss jagr.
And I asked Dave if we could sex this website up a bit, and he said, "Do whatever feels natural"
ReplyDeletePapa smurf felt natural