The night got off to a raucous start as 1:05 in the game when Marcel Hossa tapped in a gimmee off a beautiful feed by Martin Straka and the crowd went wild. Unfortunately the Rangers were stalled by again taking too many penalties (11) which disrupted the flow of their game and eventually they would lose in OT when Kevin Weekes allowed a soft goal to Michael Ryder. While that was the clincher the Rangers lost this one because they still haven't caught on to the rules. The Rangers have committed 21 penalties in two games. Unless this is stopped the season will turn into a disaster. To their credit the penalty killers have killed 19 of 21 in two games. In ice time the Ranger have played short handed 40:58 minutes in two games. That is two full periods. It has to stop. The Rangers power play time is only 16:52 less than half the penalty killing. Bad ratio which must be fixed. The good news - the Rangers did show some grit when they roared out of the gate and also in coming back late. Poti, Kasparaitis and Jamie Lundmark took two penalties each. Most of them were the lazy type. But Dominic Moore, Jason Ward, Blair Betts and Fedor Tyutin all got significant ice time and rewarded the fans with their strong play. But the Rangers must stay out of the penalty box. This is the new NHL. How long it will last is anyone's guess but give it at least 20 games.
ICINGs: While the pre game ceremony was nice I would have liked to see the players introduced individually. I guess they didn't want to see Tom Poti get booed more than necessary. On to the Devils.
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