What A Night!

Friends - I'm posting this Thursday - but I am writing it around midnight on Wednesday. I'm exhausted and elated. What a great night of hockey. The Garden was packed, noisy, and rocking. We rose to our feet over and over again to exhort our heroes to hang in there - stay with the Caps as best they could and find a way to win. And somehow - they did it.

They gave us each these cool towels (see left) that we waved all night - and sometimes hid our heads in when it became too hard to watch.

And to continue one a theme - I've never been less comfortable with a 3-1 series lead than I am against this Capitals team. I don't know how else to put it - they are better than we are - they may be the best team in Hockey with Varlamov in goal - but we have Hank and a will to win and somehow we're leading 3-1.

We're leading 3-1 even though:

• We've been outshot by a wide margin in the series


• We've been outscored in the series.


• Ovechkin has been launching an unbelievable number of shots at Hank


• The Caps Goalie shut us out for more than 120 consecutive minutes of ice time. that's more than 2 full games.


• We can't score on the Powerplay (other than in game one)


• We've only scored 3 goals or more once in the series.

So how are we winning this series 3-1? And can we capture one more game somehow to advance to round 2?


I also want to thank Nugman for adding some expert analysis as a much-needed counterpoint to my semi-coherent blogs from inside the loud and chaotic Garden. I'm not sure my posts amount to much more than "Yay Rangers" - but Nugman as usual added some substance to keep the blog afloat.

I'm sorry to have reported the wrong goal scorer twice on the same goal - but the PA announcer changed it twice. It took him three tries to get the right goal scorer - and that's with only 5 players on the ice (besides Henrik).

Anyway - I followed Nugman's example and drank heavily as the proper response to Ranger wins (and losses). So it's well past my bedtime and I'll turn in for the night. I'll post this Thursday - after I can spell check and translate the text into "sober".

Great win. I just hope we can find a way to get one more.