HEN-REEK!!!

Yogi would call it de ja vu, all over again. The only thing missing was Dancing Larry. The Garden was rockin, Jaromir Jagr scored two goals, the crowd sang "Sweet Caroline", The Prince threw a shutout and the crowd was on its feet chanting his name, Hen-reek, Hen-reek, Hen-reek. It was the second big win over a team that came in on a roll. The Hurricanes had won five out of six and one of those wins was against the Rangers on November 15th by the score of 2-1. But not last night.

You knew it was going to be something special when Marcel Hossa opened the scoring at 3:39 of the first period by deflecting one in off of a Tyutin shot. It was Hossa's first of the year. The bread and butter guys took over after that with Shanny getting his 17th and Jagr hitting the nets twice, once on a beautiful wrister right after blowing a two on zero opportunity.

The line of Betts, Ward and Hossa continued their fine defensive play shutting down everyone they faced. Additionally they each racked up a point. The Hollweg, Orr and Hall line got about three shifts a period and dished out 5 hits, three by Hollweg. Other noteworty feats included Karel Rachunek blocking 7 shots and Malik Marek dishing out 4 hits and blocking 4 shots. Oh yes he gave the puck away three times but who is counting.

The story however was Henrik Lundqvist. The Garden faithful love this kid. Yes he made 34 saves but it was how he made them. Carolina came out strong but The Prince thwarted them and after Hossa's early goal the tone was set for a great night. In the third period there was a a three save sequence in about one second that brought the crowd to is feet. Lundqvist brought his GAA down to 2.92 and his save % up to .900. He has given up nine goals in his last five games

Now on to Pittsburgh. If there is a team that we need to thrash it is this team. We are 0-2 against them and we owe them bigtime. It will be interesting to see if anyone steps up to Jarkko Ruutu who has made Jagr his personal punching bag.

ICINGS: Jagr's two goals put him 15th on the all time goal scorer's list passing Jari Kurri. That makes Jagr the highest goal scorer of a European player in the NHL. He is 6 goals behind Dino Ciccarelli and 8 goals behind Bobby Hull. He leads the NHL in points right now with 34 and leads in assists with 23. Shanny has a league leading 17 goals. It is going to be an interesting year watching these two old war horses climb the goals chart. Next is Dave Andrechuk with 640 goals. Jagr is now one career point behind Stan Mikita, he has 1466 points, for 12th spot all time.

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