Scotty Gomez's skating around like the roadrunner finally paid off last night. After skating out of his zone, he passed off to Naslund and then went to the net to tap in a sloppy rebound off of Thrasher goalie Hedberg for the game winner in OT. This was another rather nondescript win over a hapless Atlanta team that now has all of 22 points and is tied with the Islanders as the second worse team in hockey. Tampa Bay gains the honor of the worst team, and wasn't that a smart move in firing Barry Melrose?
The Rangers needed a shorthanded goal off the chest of a charging Callahan and the first goal in 83 games by Colton Orr to make it to OT. Atlanta has given up 96 goals, only the Islanders and Toronto are worse in the entire NHL at 98, and yet we could only manage two goals against this team. Rumors are that The Stealth GM is meeting with Mats Sundin on Saturday. None too soon. How about getting Shanahan in there also as this team right now is leaderless, coachless and very nearly scoreless.
After watching Orr score, Gomez decided to get physical and went at it with Thrasher star Kovalchuk and gave a pretty good account of himself. Kovalchuk seemed to be bloodied. It was the highlight of a rather drab game between two equally matched inferior teams. Now comes the test as the Rangers visit The Rock to face the Devils. Maybe the sight of the Devils will get the team out of its funk. The Rangers continue to lead the Atlantic but the three teams behind them all have games in hand. The Devils who are eight points behind have six games in hand. The first big test comes next week when the Rangers are on the road in Anaheim, LA and San Jose and then come home to face the Caps, Devils and Islanders to close out the year. Do you think we will still be in first place on Jan. 1st?
ICINGS:
Scotty Gomez is going to have to work a little harder to get credit for an official NHL fight. A couple of roughings and a slashing add up to six minutes in the sin bin, but it's not a fight equivalent. After the skirmishes last night with Kovalchuk and the one up in Montreal he still has not recorded an official fight since February 9th, 2000.
Double Latte bonus points if you know his opponent or the opponent's team. Answer here.
The "winning small, losing big" Renney Stratagem really puts a hit on the old plus/minus rating. Only two Rangers are currently "plus." Who are they? Single Latte bonus points. Answer: player 1 and player 2.
Interestingly, the lowly Thrashers had six players last night playing with a positive +/-.
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3 hours ago
No.
Great skirmish between Gomez and Kovalchuk, maybe not a real fight, but at least it wasn't staged.
They should have won by two or three goals against Atlanta, I was hoping for some type of bustout, but I should fuggedaboutit I guess. At least they went to the net and made an honest effort there.
Ship some folks out please, and get big (swedish)guy at da front, big guy at da back. Bye Fritsche, Dawes, Kalinin for sure, and ?. Lots of talk about Roszival being moved, I'm 50/50 on that. I like Scotty Hockey's idea about Kyle McLaren, worth a thought. Not sure if he is down because the Sharks are just that good, or is there more to it?
section 335-Optimist!
blow-me-down-I think we need to start with coach clueless.