Rangers beat Rangers in shootout, 4-3

No, i am not drunk. I am aware the Rangers played the Canadians tonight, but they beat themselves. The canadians were a non-factor in the game, other than Carey price, and to a lesser extent Alexei Kovalev. Tremendous amount to talk about here, so get ready for a long post.

First, this game could not have been more frustrating. Montreal is an awful team right now. Amazing how much things can change in a year. One year ago today, heading into the playoffs, you could have made a case that the rangers and the canadians were the two most dangerous teams, getting great goaltending, strong penalty killing, pretty much every facet of their games were strong, each team only had one real weakness, for the rangers it was their power play (no surprise), and the canadians, it was whether a young carey price could handle the playoffs and the pressure of living up to Dryden and Roy. Now a year later, and neither team has the look of a real threat in the playoffs. With the rangers, the veterans are there, and they have a goalie that COULD win a series on his own, so if they get in, with a decent seed, maybe they can make some noise, but the Canadians? They look awful. IF they make it, and after tonight I am saying they may not, they are one and done. (I am not overly impressed with buffalo or florida. They can be great one night, awful the next. I don't think either can overtake the Canadians, the canadians have to lose the spot, and I am not sure that crowd will let them)

What an amazing crowd to play for. The montreal fans always bring such energy, the place is always exciting, even with an AWFUL effort being displayed. (Perhaps its because next to the Yankees, who no team is really "next" to, the Canadians are the greatest sports team in history and the fans are just used to winning and trying to get the team fired up, but they really create the best atmosphere in the NHL in my opinion) What an awful show by the canadians. They have been terrible of late, especially 5 on 5 where there own coaches said they have been owned. The first period the rangers were VERY average. Their play was inconsistent, and if it weren't for the FANTASTIC play of Hank, they would have been down 2-3 goals. (More on Hank later) The rangers brought nothing to the table (despite what the announcers wanted to hype up). The play was equal, equally sloppy.

(I need to pause my train of thought for a second because Stan Fischler just said, "This is one of the greatest, funnest, runs of all time that tortorella has the rangers on"....the rangers are 6-3-1 their last 10....that's solid...but not as good as their 10-1-2 to start the season, or the 9-0-2 the penguins are on currently....someone kill this guy already)

The rangers came out in the second and def picked up their level of play (I assume after getting lit into again). Once again Hank was solid. The rangers took a 1-0 lead on a nice goal by antropov. (He followed up a solid shot by drury by crashing the net, that's where goals are found) The rangers looked like they were gonna start to put the game away...then took 3 penalties, giving the canadians their 5th power play of the game, they finally scored to tie it. And somehow through 2 periods the rangers and canadians were tied 23 shots a piece, and the canadians didn't play ONE SINGLE GOOD MINUTE in the game yet.

In the third, the rangers ABSOLUTELY dominated. Outshooting the canadians 16-5, scoring 2 goals....and giving up 2 goals. Leading 2-1 Marc Staal let a puck bounce over his stick (AGAIN), which turned into a scoring chance the other way, girardi made an awful defensive effort, callahan decided to KICK Hank while he was trying to make a save, and it was 2-2. The rangers kept pressing, got a 3-2 lead, and then drury tries to get fancy with a puck he should have dumped, especially with a lead, gives up a scoring chance the other way, and Hank gives up his softest goal of the year. (Which he just called in the post game "Absolutely awful, terrible goal" and "inexcusable") From a bad angle, not much on it, hit his shoulder and bounced into the net, awful goal.

It went to a shootout, where the rangers got goals from Naslund, Antropov, and Drury to back up a suddenly shaky Hank that allowed 2 goals, and won 3-2 in the shootout, 4-3 overall.

Some of the positives:

- Scoring 3 or more: Rangers now 31-3-2 on the season

- Hank, overall an "ok" game, 26 saves on 29 chances, gets the win. He was great the first two periods, but in the third seemed to fall asleep, including the shootout, allowed 4 goals on the final 8 shots he saw. Now 6-1 last 7 games with 2.29 GAA.

Hanks game tonight reminded me about Martin "Fatso" Brodeur. Marty became the all time winningest goalie tonight, 552 wins, pretty amazing accomplishment. A friend asked me earlier tonight, with the wins, second all time in shutouts, and the 3 cups, is brodeur the greatest ever? It's tough, and the fact that he makes it tough to answer is a credit to how good he has been for how long (and hasn't shown much sign of slowing down, aside from injury this season), but right now I can't give him the nod. He is certainly one of the greatest, but unlike a guy like Roy who took multiple teams to cup victories, with different styles of play in front of him, and more offensively minded teams, Brodeur played the majority of his career in the most defensive, low scoring era in NHL history, with a team with very strong defenders who sole game plan was "do not allow shots on goal", especially in that 1997-2002 area where the devils were very good, and the rangers were in a heavy decline, it really stood out when watching a guy like mike richter, every game you would see, "Richter, 35 saves on 38 chances, rangers lose 3-2", and then you'd check the devils boxscore and see, "Devils win 2-1...brodeur with 13 saves" 13? That's it? He was getting routinely sub 20 shots per game the vast majority of games. And if you watched the devils, they were rarely tough saves. It was a team that gave away almost no chances, rarely a break away. So I think brodeur is great, but he also probably played for the most defensive minded team in the league, in the lowest scoring era ever.

But a plus for brodeur which I have said before. If you watch Hank in games where he only gets 15-18 shots, VERY RARE, but you might see him give up a weak goal or two. Most goalies would say that they prefer to see consistent shots throughout the game. It's very tough to stay on your A game, when you see one shot every 5 minutes. We saw that tonight with Hank. When the rangers took over in the third, allowing just 5 shots all period, only 2 shots the first 10 minutes, Hank looked VERY shaky, giving up his weakest goal of the year, and just losing his touch in the shootout. I would def say brodeur had the focus of an all time best goalie, because he always seemed to stay in his game regardless of how slow a night it was.

- Tortorella. This is a game they don't win under Renney, at least this year. You could tell when they came out at the beginning of the second, and especially the third, that they had had a fire lit under their asses during intermission. They have a renewed focus and energy that they absolutely didn't have earlier in the season. (Part of that is due to the influx of new players, especially avery, but still) And the one move I give Torts total credit for, Drury in the shootout. Drury has not only not been great in the shootout his two years with the rangers (and said he didn't want to be in it last year (as did Jagr...which created a bit of a problem)), but he also made the key giveaway in the third that caused the tying goal and the overtime. Drury would not have been my choice. I was preparing my "Is their a better 3-some hands wise in the NHL, then Naslund, Antropov, Zherdev?" (Scoring, sure, but pure hands, no way, no one can top that) By going back to Drury, torts wanted to make a "Your my captain, go win this game" sort of statement, and Drury delivered with the winning goal. Drury looked real fired up afterwards, got some big high 5's from the team, big goal for him and usually with a guy like Drury, that sparks a nice scoring stretch. I would absolutely put money on him scoring in 3 of the next 4 games. Also for Torts tonight, the win makes him the winningest US born coach ever. Congrats, 245 wins.

- I've been on him all year, so I will give him tonight. Redden was very strong. Despite the CONSTANT jerking of girardi and Staal by Micheletti and Rosen (despite their normally very average play), Redden was the best defender for the rangers tonight. He not only made a fantastic play to break up a 2 on 1 in the first (which girardi later butchered in the third), but he also was very effective on offense pinching in all night. He had a great deflection in OT that almost won the game, and picked up an assist on Antropov's goal. Strong game for him.

- Callahan. After just an ugly play where he rushed back on HANK, pop up slid in front of him, kicked Hank with his SKATE, and then knocked the net out of place as the tying goal was scored, Callahan rebounded, and showed why he is a young player worth hanging on to. Kept his head, kept crashing the net, this time against Price, and scored a big go ahead goal for the rangers. Strong come back for the kid.

- Antropov. The guy has been great since he arrived. (Can I really give sather credit? I mean he did f*ck up the team first right, just because he is fixing some of his screwups, can I give him that much credit?) He is a 6'6 monster with fantastic hands, that crashes the net and has been a force on the power play. He scored his 25th goal tonight, (4th with the rangers), and I'm excited to see what he could do in a playoff series. Also scored a goal in the shootout with a wrister over price on the stick side where he had NO chance. Amazing release. Very shannahan esque.

- Morris and Avery. Again, Morris, Avery, and Antropov very strong games. Avery and Morris didn't light up the scoreboard, but both were skating very well, and creating good chances, and I love Morris' shot, and avery's intensity (again, avery drawing penalties)

The bad:

- So much here. The rangers as a team CARRIED the Canadians to a point in the standings. The Canadians had NO BUSINESS getting a point in that game. A team that plays that bad, in front of that crowd, should not go to postseason, but the rangers helped them along.

- Gomez...he can be so good....and so flaky. A ridiculous penalty in the final two minutes, where he had no shot at the puck and went off for a trip, could have cost the rangers the game..and their season? And then at the start of OT he throws a very ill advised pass across the middle of the ice, looking to make a play to zherdev, who was behind him, when he should have been dumping the puck. Had the canadians handled it cleanly, it's a 3 on 1 on Hank in OT. When gomez and zherdev are on the ice together, it is a "ANYTHING can happen, but something WILL happen" sort of moment. Either they are going to create a fantastic chance for the Rangers...or the other team.

- Sjostrom, Hank makes an AMAZING save to preserve a one goal lead after Zherdev just scored, and you throw the puck over the glass for a penalty that sets up the tying goal for the canadians??? That play was indicative of the entire game. The rangers would do something great, then do something awful, and would find a way to keep both teams in the game.

- Staal and Girardi. If your going to give next to nothing on offense, you have to make ALL the plays on defense, and they didn't tonight. Staal let a bouncing puck hop over his stick as he was trying to make a play off it, rather than just stopping it with his skate and dumping it, and girardi was then beat BADLY one on one to allow a goal on Hank. Not an awful night for them, but not a great one either.

Overall, the rangers got the 2 points they had to, in a tough place to play, but they gave away one. Around the league, the flyers blew a 2 goal lead to the red wings and lose in regulation (huge, that basically negates the rangers loss on Saturday, the 4 seed is alive and well). Sabres and Panthers both lose in regulation, so rangers gain another crucial game on them each, and they keep pace with Pittsburgh who won 6-2. Pittsburgh is still 2 points up, but has played one more game than the Rangers. So the opposition went 1-3-1 tonight (including Montreal), so rangers gained on 4 of 5 teams playing, good night overall.

Rangers hold the 6 seed, 2 points out of the 4 (Philly has 2 games in hand, but 2 left against rangers)

Weekend Split, but I'll take it

To realistically catch the Flyers and have a shot at the 4 seed in the east (and home ice in the first round), the rangers needed to win all of their final 4 games against philly (since philly has 2 games in hand). After the depressing loss yesterday, it's not out of reach, but Rangers absolutely had to win the next 3, starting with today on home ice.

Thanks to solid Hank again, a more and more dominant avery, and a resurgent power play (which got plenty of practice) the rangers were able to overcome some tired legs, and some awful announcing by Doc Emrick, to hammer the flyers 4-1. The win moves the rangers up to 80 points on the season and guarantees they will stay in the top 8 heading into next week. It also moves the rangers 4 points back of philly for that 4 spot in the east and keeps some hope alive to attain that spot.

Some highlights:

- Avery, 2 goals, drew a couple of penalties, and took a very debatable one (an interference on the goalie where he was pushed into the goalie, made an effort to not run him over, and it was still called. The refs were terrible all game, but for the most part it benefited the rangers, since the flyers, while the bigger team, clearly had no legs coming off yesterday and were hooking almost every minute to compensate for their lack of energy). Avery was probably the quickest skater on the ice, constantly driving to the net and putting pressure on Nitimaki. NBC did a nice job of showing Avery keeping his stick on the ice for his first deflection of a hard slap shot from Morris. Often players leave their sticks up, and try and bring them down when the shot is on the way, which is MUCH more difficult then starting low and bringing your stick up. Also having the stick low gives a guy like Morris a target to shoot for. As big of a jerk as he is on the ice (which helps him take the star player on the other team out of his game), Avery actually is an incredibly well schooled, fundamentally strong player, who happens to also be a great skater. Avery has played his "best game with the rangers" now three straight games.

- The Rangers power play was strong. They got a lot of work thanks to a ton of calls on philly (most of them deserved). Morris really looked great with his ability to not only find the open man, but to actually SHOOT when he had a lane. Antropov also scored his third goal with the rangers, second on the power play. He has very talented hands, and is a big body that plays down low. I think it would be fair to say outside of Hank; Avery, Antropov, and Morris have probably been the rangers 3 best players the last 5 games. (Gomez has been solid as well, but I give the edge to those guys)

- The rangers penalty kill was excellent again. They gave up a deflected goal in the second period, but otherwise gave up almost no chances short handed on Hank. Sjostrom and Betts are fantastic on the kill. Betts has now almost reached that special "He's overrated for being underrated" place as a player. He is one of, if not the best penalty killing forward in the league, and for the most part, announcers never notice this. So it went un-noticed for well over a year. Then finally, one announcer says it, and it immediately goes on every announcer's pregame notes sheet that "betts top penalty killer for rangers, underrated". So now every time the rangers do a game on Versus, or NBC, some announcer that has covered them maybe twice all year has to say how great Betts is on the kill to show he knows what he is talking about.

- Hank, strong per usual. Coming off a tough game in Philly, glad torts went back to him infront of the home crowd today. With the win, Hank now 5-1, 2.16 GAA the last 6 games in net (Rangers 5-2 last 7). Hank has been incredible down the stretch in each of the last 3 seasons, need to have that again.

Guys I have been on, and how they did today:

- Redden and Doobie: Neither had ANY positive impact on the game. They weren't bad though, they just didn't do much if anything. That's the way it has been with these two most of the year. Redden either is no help on the power play, lets a puck hop over his stick that turns into a goal the other way, and plays soft, OR he has a game like today where he did nothing to stand out, but didn't hurt the team. Hard to imagine 5 more years of this type of play (for 30 million dollars). Doobie on the other hand isn't washed up, he just won't realize his talent (or his talent was drastically overestimated). When he tries to be physical, he takes a penalty hitting guys upstairs with his elbows. On offense, you didn't even know he was on the ice.

- Rozsival:.......wow....just wow. That's all I can say. I don't think it is a completely absurd statement to say that was the worst game a rangers defenseman has played this year, in a winning effort. He was taking bad penalties, he missed a WIDE OPEN NET on a perfect feed from callahan rush, at the time a huge missed shot. He is playing incredibly soft, and on the powerplay, he is starting to do more and more of a Dan girardi-esque slow wrister with nothing on it towards the net in traffic that never even gets close to the goal. He makes VERY slow decisions with the puck. He looks lost. 3 more years of him and redden together at 11 mill a year is a bit of a nightmare. (Mark Streit, with the Islanders, got a 5 years, 21 million dollars deal in the offseason. Rozsival got 4 years and 20 mill. Streit was a part of a Montreal power play that led the league in goals two years in a row, and he was a huge factor why. Now he is playing great on a terrible Islanders team. Where was sather???)

Today was a huge win. Team played hard after a tough loss yesterday, gotta rest for an ENORMOUS game on tuesday in Montreal, where the rangers play has been "poor" the last two seasons.

Only game of relevance the rest of the day, Bruins at Pittsburgh. Pittsburgh is hot, Bruins are skidding badly. I really can't root for a team from Boston because I have a college education and no one in my family has ever been a roofer or worked with any type of stones or bricks for a living that I know of. Also most people in my family would probably think the guy that bashes a girls head into a windshield over and over because of something she said was at fault, not the other way around (http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/03/13/many_boston_teens_surveyed_say_rihanna_is_at_fault_for_assault/) OOh well, hope pittsburgh loses.

Beating the Bruins

Big win, needed it, now 3 in a row. Gotta get a nice little 9 out of 10 going.

Hank was strong again, gave up 2 goals in a 2 minute span in the third, but I credit that with lax defense mainly.

1) No idea what redden is thinking. He has a man in the corner, with no angle on hank, let him take that shot, it has no chance. But instead, he has his stick covering the shooting lane, and leaves a passing lane to the middle of the ice wide open? Just an awful idea. It'd be like in hoops if you had a guy trapped in the corner, and positioned your body to keep him from going out of bounds rather than cutting off the clear passing lane back to the center of the court. That's a pretty big foul up for a veteran defenseman that led to a one timer from 8 feet out in front of the net, and the tying goal

2) And NBC highlighted Andropov as doing this, but multiple Rangers forwards in the third got very careless with their defense. Andropov wasn't taking care of his area of the ice, and was just skating around chasing the puck, leaving large areas wide open. I don't know how the rangers can leave Chara, the only guy with a legit slap shot on the bruins (who also might have the best in the NHL, certainly the hardest), wide open and give him 20 feet of room in every direction to rip 100 mph shot on hank. A pretty shaky defensive third almost cost them.

But I did like that they were very aggressive even when they had the 3-1 lead. Part of the Renney era was sitting back, little to no fore-check, and just looking to keep the puck out of their zone. (In fairness to Renney, they did end up winning most of their games) But when a team was able to come back and tie, you knew the game was over because the rangers had been back on their heels for a full period. Not to mention they used this technique even when they only had one goal leads, with more than ten minutes left.

Torteralla seems pretty relaxed, but also like he is getting the guys to play real hard. They have definitely crashed the net more in these last 3 games then they had in any 3 game stretch all season. And the end result, thanks to some horrific goal tending by fernandez today, is 14 goals in 3 games. (Normally when NBC spotlights a guy they get overly dramatic or exaggerate how bad or good his play is, but they were right on with fernandez. He was in such horrible position most of the game, and he was jumping around all over the place, allowing rebounds and open nets. The announcers got it right when they said he looked "like a rec league goalie")

Anyway, 14 goals the last 3 games, 3-0-0 record (6 points out of a possible 6)
13 goals the prior 8 games going 1-4-3 (5 points out of a possible 16)
Moral of story, crashing net is good, scoring goals is good.

Also, the power play, while not all there yet, does look a lot better. (Not to get on redden too much, but he still is a non-factor on it. He is sitting out at the blue line, right on the blue line, on the left side of the ice, doing NOTHING. He doesn't pinch in, he is in no position to score from there, and for anyone to reach him with a pass they have to throw it all the way across ice, through lanes where defenders most likely are, and if he doesn't handle it perfectly, since he is on the blue line, it will pop over and go out of the zone) They are now around 23% on the power play under Torterella in 5 games, compared to around 14-15% prior.

Hank with 36 saves deserved a win, good to get him one.

And the Avery factor, I thought he played strong (especially given he doesn't have his legs back yet), and had a couple of bursts of speed that led to some nice chances. The call in the last minute on the interference maybe was legit, but rider did the EXACT same thing, except more flagrant, to Gomez 3 minutes prior and nothing was called. I don't like when the refs take the game into their hands, that call should not have been made, or you have to make the Gomez call also, can't only have one. Regardless, now 2-0-0 with Avery, and 52-23-13 with Avery as a ranger.

Looking ahead, tomorrow at Carolina is an ENORMOUS game. Then they have a stretch where the final 14 games they play Philly FOUR times. The big mark the calendar stretch is March 28 to April 12. Over those 15 days the rangers have away games at Pittsburgh, Boston, and Carolina (places they have had trouble winning these past two seasons. Home games against New Jersey and Montreal (two teams they have not played well against this season), and then they finish the season with a home and home against the flyers, the back end being in Philly. That's 7 HUGE games in 15 days. And the way the standings are, barring pretty big slumps from the top 3 teams in the east, you have to think those positions are set. But the rangers could easily end up as the #4 seed and have home ice in the first round, or they could end up out of the playoffs altogether. Scoreboard watching from here on out:

Pittsburgh, Philly, Carolina, Florida, Buffalo, Montreal and the Rangers. 7 teams fighting for 5 spots.

Penguins playing the caps today, Montreal playing the stars. Both penguins and Canadians are on road. Hope the home teams get the job done (in regulation)

-Bruce

A Little Help, Please

It seems every team the rangers are competing against are on fire right now, buffalo, Carolina, Pittsburgh, Montréal all seem to win every time they play. Rangers gotta pull this one out against the bruins, then two more big games, tomorrow against Carolina is huge (especially because they have today off)

It would be very nice if the capitals could beat the penguins, and the stars could beat the Canadians today, get a little help.

Andropov and Morris have had a very positive impact in their two games so far, nice to have Avery back as well.

-Bruce