Getting less than nine minutes of ice time, Petr Prucha, made like Sean Avery last night at the Garden as the Rangers eked out a 3-1 win over the Islanders last night. If you saw Scotty Gomez's goal trickle through the legs of Islander goalie Yann Danis you know eke was the right word. Sjostrom got an empty netter to close it out at 3-1. Henrik Lundqvist was the number one star of the game with 25 saves as he continued his up and down performance.
However, the real star was Prucha who got number two star honors. He set up the first goal of the game by Nigel Dawes, number three star, played a feisty game and got into a brawl with Sean Bergenheim, who must outweigh Prucha by at least thirty pounds. No sweat. The Pruch gave as much as he got. Who needs Avery. Actually had Korpikoski not had an injury and been scratched Prucha probably would not have played and the Rangers would have lost. Probably. But that would have made coach clueless happy because we all know that Prucha doesn't have the stamina to play more than two games in a row. There is no truth to the rumor than coach clueless was wincing during Prucha's performance. However, he could only see fit to give Prucha less than nine minutes of ice time.
Of course you know who got the most ice time. Wade Redden. Almost 27 minutes of ice time, almost 5 minutes of power play time and he delivered all of one hit and one assist, that on Sjostrom's empty netter. The Ranger's power play was 1-5 and the one was on Scott Gomez's cheesy goal. So nothing is fixed. The formula remains the same. Lundqvist must stand tall, score a goal hang on for dear life and squeak into the playoffs. Aah, the playoffs. Make the playoffs and all sins will be forgiven. Make the playoffs and the money will roll in for the playoff games. Make the playoffs and coach clueless will become Tom Terrific. Make the playoffs and we will continue to get more years of mediocrity and philosophical discourses. But, make the playoffs.
There is only one thing wrong with this formula. You have to make the playoffs. Will we, the fans, be satisfied that we made the playoffs and went bye bye in the first round? Who knows? Sometimes I think the fans aren't any smarter than the apologists on MSG and the media. After all, if in the heat of a tight game they still put more credence on the "Potvin Sucks" chant than what is going on in the game then who knows how smart they are and what they are thinking. But why be so dour Pundit? Didn't we just beat the hated Islanders? Or did we?
Thursday, February 19, 2009
Wow! A Win!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Perhaps a new chant should be heard throughout the land:
"Renney Sucks!"
FYI:
The Renney party line on Prucha was nicely reported by Rick Carpiniello over at the Rangers Report. In an interview, Renney said he doesn't play Prucha as much because he basically wears down".
Carpiniello said:
“With a guy like Pruch, it’s a matter of him getting in and being able to sustain it,” Renney said. “He’s not a big guy. For our needs, at least, a guy like Petr is good for a while and then it seems to dry up on him. Then I can get him back in again. The bottom line is it’s his size. It’s getting banged around, and then because of that, not being able to sustain what he can deliver over the period of more than four or five games. And that’s the dilemma that I have.
“And it’s too bad,” Renney said, “because he’s a helluva guy.”
This Prucha "wears down" theory was also discussed and laughed at on WFAN last week.
There were over 425 comments to the RR post. Needless to say you can guess what most fans thought of Renney's crock. I liked this reply:
The words of a card-carrying idiot. Prucha ODed on morphone is a more productive player IN EVERY PHASE than Voros and half the other slackers on this team.