The chant rocked the Garden after Sean Avery scored his second goal of the game and fifteenth of the season. Besides the fans did anyone else hear it? Neil Smith, who was at the Garden heard it. I don't believe the Stealth GM heard it. Where is the Stealth GM? Only The Shadow knows. Avery's fifteen goals are only three less than Jagr's and Jagr has played in twenty five more games than Avery. Needless to say Avery was the number one star of the game. The Rangers are 11-1-1 when Sean Avery gets two points in a a game. Re-Sign A-Very.
Ponder this for a moment. The Rangers are 16-8 against the five teams that are above them in the Eastern Conference. Against eight place Philadelphia and ninth place Buffalo the Rangers are 9-1. Against the rest of the league the Rangers are 13-26. I am counting all OT and shootout losses as regular losses. The Ranger's win put the Rangers in sole possession of sixth place, two points ahead of Boston and two points behind Ottawa. The Rangers are four points behind Pittsburgh and all four teams have nine games remaining.
The win took the sting out of the lost weekend debacle in Florida and also ended Pittsburgh's three game winning streak. The Rangers scored two goals in forty seconds to take an early 2-0 lead. Avery off of a beautiful feed from Jagr and Callahan (8) putting in a long rebound shot from Drury and it looked like a rout. But a bad line change by the Rangers led to Jarkko Ruutu's breakaway goal and later the Rangers and Lundqvist got real sloppy in their end and Jordan Staal tied it at two. Coach clueless made a good call by calling for a timeout and I swear I actually saw his lips move. What ever he said, it worked. It was then Pittsburgh's chance to get sloppy and they payed dearly as Fredrick Sjostrum had the puck in front of Pen goalie Ty Conklin and the youngster buried it for his second Ranger goal. Avery's second of the game and Straka (13) then put the game away.
Lundqvist made 22 saves for his 33rd win of the year and the 100th win of his career. He has achieved 100 wins in the shortest time for any goalie in Ranger history. The only bad news was the power play and while it was only 0-2 and didn't affect the game its play was awful. There were only two shots on goal and Staal and Malik were the only defensemen who didn't get any power play time. Others not getting power play time were Dawes, Avery and Callahan. These are three gritty players who could do some damage on the PP but no sir, no time. Avery is the type of guy they need in front of the net but when you are playing a perimeter game there is no need for a guy in front of the net. Coach clueless refuses to make any personnel changes on the power play, but God knows that the Rangers need to make changes on the power play which is now 3-36.
Now it's tomorrow night, or is it tonight, against the Devils at The Rock. A win against the Devils will put the Rangers three points behind the Devils and Montreal for first place in the East. No sweat, they are above us in the standings.
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i am beginning to think that Slats & Gang and Avery are both right in the negotiations -- Avery gets the audience behind him and still has to deliver...2 goals last night were terrific, but the setups were nicer.
I am confident Avery will still be a Ranger. There is that special thing, drive...passion...that he brings to the game when he plays. Without him, everyone follows the Jagr route...but the truth is...he's just a good solid hockey player...not someone worth the kind of money he thinks he's worth. Plus no one else in the league will want the guy for the coin he'll demand.
tdr
Dark Ranger-My dearly departed father used to say. "There are three sides to every story. Yours, mine and the truth."
Look at the Ranger record with him in the lineup and him out. Its like 70% wins vs about 35% wins. He may go for less just to spite the Stealth GM.