De Je Vu-All Over Again

Yogi Berra would have loved todays game at Scotiabank Place. It looked like a rerun of 2005-06. Lundqvist was sparkling in the goal and Jagr was running the offense. And the new 'old kid' on the block chipping in. Lundqvist sparkled with a 34 save performance. He would have had a shutout had Matt Cullen put a little more juice on his clearout pass while the Rangers were killing a penalty in the second period. The goal narrowed the Ranger lead to 2-1 but the Prince was perfect the rest of the game. He outdueled Ray Emery who made 26 saves. Since the Islander debacle Lundqvist has performed brilliantly.

Jaromir Jagr looked like his old self. A beautiful pass to Straka for the first goal. It was the surging Straka's 16th goal of the season. Then Jagr scored on one of his patented moves. Skating from the left of Emery to the center and then firing a laser for his 14th goal of the year and his league leading 43rd point. Imagine when he gets healthy. Jagr leads Hossa of Atlanta by two points and Hossa has played one more game than Jagr. Jagr had six shots on goal four of them in the third period when he owned the ice.

Shanahan scored his league leading 22nd goal, one more than Hossa who has played one more game than Shanny. The game was a hard hitting affair with the Senators outhitting the Rangers 32-28. Chris Neil of the Senators lead all hitters with 7, his teammate Mike Fisher had five. The Rangers were lead by Ryan Hollweg, who else? He had 5 hits and for the first time in memory every Ranger defenseman had at least one hit, with Ward and Tyutin getting three hits each.

The Rangers are now tied with the Devils for first in the Atlantic Division but the Devils have two games in hand. However the Rangers have to be encouraged by the strong play of Lundqvist in the last two games and what looks like the start of a surge from Jagr.

Now it is on to a Caribbean tour for the Pundit and half of his family. We will be flying toBarbados tomorrow where we will catch the Ranger-Florida game. We will be at Berts in Barbados cheering our heroes on. We will be back in print on the 22nd of December. Until then, you will be updated by our able staff led by jb. We are off to an adventure in paradise.

ICINGS:
Daily News
Rangers Put It Together
NY Post
Sixty-Minute Special
Newsday
Slamming door shut

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