Ugh.
The Ranger's 7 game win streak suddenly
seems like something that happened to a different team in a different, better, season. It's been 9 days
now since the Rangers have beaten anyone. Our hockey team lost 2-1
last night to the Florida Panthers – scoring just 1 goal against
Jose “Three-Or-More” Theodore and casting doubts about our
offense, our identity, and our season. For today's analysis –
we'll go with The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly.
The Good: There were several bright
spots:
1 – Henrik Lundqvist. The Rangers'
best player once again kept them in a hockey game where they were
badly outshot. Hank made 36 saves with a .947 save percentage –
letting up one one even strength goal. Another wasted stellar
performance, more than good enough to win most hockey games for most
teams on most nights – but again not enough for this hockey team to
win with last night.
2 – Marian Gaborik made a nice play
to grab an assist on the Lone Ranger goal – stick handling in the
offensive zone, drawing skaters to him and making a perfect feed
to...
3 – Derek Stepan – who took the
Gabroric pass and found the upper right corner of the net to open and
close out the Ranger scoring for the night. And for the week,
actually.
4 – Hits. The Rangers delivered 50
hits last night – most of them legal (we'll explain later) – with
Dubinsky leading the attack with 10 of his own. The aggressiveness
is good – the opportunity to hit is partially due to the long
stretches where we don't have the puck.
The Bad:
1 – Artem Anisimov was running on
empty – dragging the GAS line down with him. The top line center
(for the moment) looked silly as he got faked out by Flieschmann down
low to Lundqvist's left for the Cat's only even strength goal of the
night.
2 - Ryan Callahan - the Captain keeps committing harmful penalties and it was during his 4 minutes (not Deveaux's major) that the Rangers gave up their special team's difference-making goal.
The Ugly:
1 - Andre Deveaux collected 10 of the
Rangers 16 minutes in penalties last night – all in one nasty
dangerous elbow-to-the-head of the Panther's Fleischmann midway
through the 2nd period at center ice. Tomas was down on
the ice for several scarey minutes before getting up under his own
power – and even eventually returning to the game. Deveaux was
correctly assessed a 10 minute Match Penalty – and will likely face
suspension by the league office. This was exactly the type of head
shot the NHL is finally getting around to caring about. Panther
coach Kevin Dineen called it a perfect example of “what's really
wrong with the game”. If you want Dave Pucks opinion – I don't
like intent-to-injure tactics by anyone in any league and I was very
unhappy to see a Ranger do something like this
2 – Man-Up! Ranger Special teams
lost the game last night. When we started the game the Rangers had the 28th worst powerplay unit in the NHL. And when the game was over? We dropped to 29th! The PowerPlay was a pointless 0-4
including some 5-on-3 time. And our Penalty kill was 3-4, not
terrible, but when you get outscored on special teams in the NHL you
lose. We did, and so we did.
A Few More Notes:
Avery Watch: Just: 7:07 of ice time.
Not good. No shots. No hits. 1 take-away, 1 give-away. (In
Biblical terms: Sean giveth and Sean Taketh Away). 2 Penalty
minutes. And an even plus-minus. Oh, and when someone had to serve
the 10 minute Match Penalty for Deveaux, who do you think Torts sent
to the penalty box? Our Seanny.
Stralman - finally - got his first Ranger ice time
– after waiting since November 5th to play in a game.
10:26 of ice time, 3:25 on the powerplay, a plus-minus of +1, and 2
hits.
So as they eat their Thanksgiving
Dinner, the Rangers can think about what went wrong in their last two
games. Is it the natural ebb and flow of the season, or is it
something much worse? Did the Rangers look good against weak
competition, and is their poor special teams play exposing them
against the better teams? We'll all find out together as the season
rolls on.
Happy Thanksgiving from Dave Pucks,
Pucks Junior, and the whole Pucks family! We hope you come out of the that nasty scramble in the corner with a drumstick or two.
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