Is The Prince a star or what? He is a star, and just like the Broadway stars who love their encores and hate to leave the stage, The Prince responded last night. When announced as the number one star he slowly skated across the ice and threw his stick to the crowd. His stick. The crowd loved it. He then slowly skated back and threw a puck to the crowd on the other side and he loved every minute of it. And why not.
He dazzled the crowd all night and befuddled the Devils who fired 36 shots on him and only saw two go in. And the crowd roared his name, Hen-reek, Hen-reek. Forget that dumb article in the NY Post that states the crowd calls him Hank. The crowd knows his name, Hen-reek! With a much improved defense in front of him, Lundqvist was simply outstanding and besides lifting his team he also lifted the crowd which was kind of apprehensive coming off of three straight losses.
While Renney put rookie Nigel Dawes in the lineup, he only got 3:54 of ice time. But a more subtle move by Renney was making the tandem of Aaron Ward and Fedor Tyutin the number one defensive pair. They both got over twenty two minutes of ice time, the most of any defenseman. He also used them as the number one unit on the penalty kill. He still put Rozsival on the PP along with Martin Straka. But this PP unit was only used once as the Rangers were 1-1 on the power play, scored by Shanahan, who else.
The new Ranger penalty kill lineup worked well shutting out the Devils 7-7. The unit has now given up 9 goals in 44 chances which comes to 80%. Not too bad considering the bad start. Jason Ward scored the Rangers first shorthanded goal of the season for the Rangers. Here too Renney changed the combinations pairing Jason Ward with Blair Betts as the number one unit with Cullen and Shanahan on the number two. Cullen however, assisted on Jason Ward's shorthander, on a half line change.
Besides Lundqvist the biggest story was the hitting. Perhaps inspired by the return of Kaspy, who had three hits, the Rangers outhit the Devils 36-16. Ryan Hollweg, getting increased ice time, 11:51, dished out 6 hits. Eat your heart out A-Rod. Aaron Ward and Matt Cullen had 4 hits each. Jason Ward and Tyutin had three and even Rozsival joined the hit parade with three. All in all a good nights work and there are seven more to go with the Devils. Too bad the loudmouth Devil fans behind me left after the second period. Anyhow, for one night Renney was a genius again.
ICINGS: Shanahan is now only three goals behind Dino Ciccarelli for thirteenth place on the all time goal scorers. Jaromir Jagr got only an assist but put on a dazzling display of forechecking and puck control in the last couple of minutes. He is getting close to exploding soon. Shanahan was the number two star and Jason Ward was star number three. Now let's get on a roll and win a few in a row.
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
The Prince Of Broadway Is Back
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Last year Jagr, this year Shanahan is off to a MVP type year. Who's the next guy to bring in who's nearing 600 goals? Shhhh...don't want to jinz Shanny.
benson von hurst-Guys like Shanahan don't get jinxed. The guy is like old man river, just keeps rolling along.