M.I.A.

Its been a long morning. I had to arise early to go for a physical and that is why I did not show up at the game last night. However, I wasn't the only one who didn't show up last night, the Rangers didn't show up either, with some minor exceptions. I'm amazed at hockey players. They have to skate anywhere from 15-20 minutes a night and some of them seem to have a problem doing that night in and night out. They put in roughly 20-30 hours a year and they get tired and can't always give it their all. Think of it. How many hours a week, a year you put in? Do you ever mail it in? You can't.

Sam and Joe kept praising the fourth line for their great work but what did it get them? Hollweg got all of 8:13, Orr got 9:05 and Betts got 10:20 of which 2:01 was PK time. The usual suspects got their usual amount of big time Straka got 21:40 with three shots and Jagr got 20:49 with two shots. Two shots in over twenty minutes boils down to a shot every ten minutes, tough night for the big guy. Hopefully, he will show up against Toronto, and I do mean show up. There was one sequence in the first period when both Jagr and Straka passed up shots to pass the puck backward, away from the net, to no avail. Coach clueless was behind the bench for sixty minutes, that was confirmed.

Carolina is last in the NHL in goals against having given up 86 goals in 28 games. They are also last in PK with a 75% success rate. The Ranger were 0-4 on the PP getting six shots in eight minutes. How bad was this game? Bad enough for me to go back and fourth with an old John Wayne movie that I have seen many times, Angel and the Badman. It ends for the best and the Duke doesn't even have a gun in his hand at the end. The Rangers could have used a gun at the end.

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