First Period Blowup Dooms Rangers

The Rangers continued their undisciplined play in the first period last night and unlike Saturday when they held the Canadiens to 1 goal in 8 power play attempts, last night they collapsed as the Penguins scored two power play goals in the first period. The Rangers took four penalties in the first period and one of the power plays was a five on three which the Pens converted en route to a 4-1 win over the hapless Blueshirts. The last goal was an empty netter by Malkin which gave him his second hat trick in the last eleven games.

The first power play goal was Ranger coverage at its most inept. Marek Malik was completely out of position which allowed Malkin to literally walk in and score with a helpless Michal Rozsival being picked by a Penguin. In truth a penalty could have been called against the Penguins for interfering but they did this all night and only one penalty was called on the picks against the Pens. However, Rozsival was quite passive and made no attempt to stop Malkin. To think this is coach clueless's number one defensive pair. To think that we have young legs like Thomas Pock and Ivan Baranka in Hartford while the dynamic duo of Rozy and Lurch continue to dazzle us. Aah, but they have great plus minuses. They also get great press from the drive by media who are in cahoots with coach clueless to foster this sham upon the fans. By the way, the fans are all wrong and so bad when we boo Malik 'The Maleficent.' We should be cheering him when he doesn't trip over the puck or get torched by an opponent. Notice how Sam and Joe go out of their way to extol any non foul-up. Unfortunately there is no change in sight.

The Rangers took 41 shots on goal and most of them were from their favorite spots, the perimeter. The one goal scored was when Jagr went to the net and was stopped and then he rebounded his own shot in. The charges to the net were few and infrequent. Meanwhile, the Penguins were skating around at will and were basically untouched. There was a fight at the beginning and a big skirmish at the end but in between was Ranger hockey. We won basically all the statistics but lost the game. The Ranger were 1-6 on the PP and the Pens were 2-5. The Rangers were 17% and the Pens were 40%. That's quite a difference and the young team beat the old team.

So now what? It already started that Shanahan and Avery were missing. Are the Rangers that fragile that no one can pick up the absence of these two players? The Rangers are now 21-20-5 and heading in the wrong direction. This is a team that should be fighting for the top spot and are clinging to dear life in an attempt to make the playoffs. We are 15 points behind Ottawa for the top spot and only 8 points ahead of 15th place Tampa Bay. The team has about as much talent as any team in the NHL, but they perform night in and night out as poorly as the worst teams in the league. But what do you expect with an absentee owner, a stealth GM and a clueless coach?

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