It was like a Deli at the Garden last night as they were running specials, which suited the Rangers just fine. Bouncing back from the Pittsburgh thing the Rangers scored two power play goals, two short handed goals, the last one an empty netter and beat the Anaheim Ducks 4-2. The Ducks were the prime course and they cooperated nicely. The Rangers special teams were almost perfect, but the penalty kill bent in giving up a power play goal to the Ducks who were 1-5 on the power play.
The Rangers in a sudden explosion were 2-7 on the power play with goals from Naslund and Gomez, which was the winner. The shorthanded ones were from Sjostrom and Betts. Betts scored the empty netter and he was outstanding on the penalty kill, getting a standing ovation for his work and earning the number one star. The number one star should have been Lundqvist, who was named number two star. Scotty Gomez, who scored his first power play goal of the year, was the number three star.
Coach clueless, who used the Pittsburgh debacle as an excuse to bench Prucha, also benched Korpikoski in favor of Voros and Fritsche. Both saw close to 12 minutes of ice time, each had a shot on goal, which I must have missed and neither distinguished themselves. Clueless said he wanted "grease" from his team, hence the changes. Fritsche got one hit, Voros two and Voros further distinguished himself by missing the last ten minutes of the game without a shift. It seems after Voros's third minor penalty that clueless had seen enough. For this game anyway.
So you tell me. Who would you rather see playing? Two young kids with upside potential or two journeymen? Aah, but the journeymen were 'key' acquisitions during the off season by the Stealth GM and hence they will continue to play as the clueless coach continues to coach upward and satisfies the genius Stealth GM.
Wednesday, January 21, 2009
Specials Nite
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This hockey team wins or not depending upon its special team's performance in any given night. It is built to play 0-0 five-on-five hockey. I congratulate our Coach on recognizing this, and working so hard to make sure our power play is among the top in the league. I congratulate the Coach and Slats for yelling at Z so that he would stop scoring - this has been effective, and benching Prucha for scoring too much and having too much potential to score.
If I wanted to watch the Devils, I would have moved to New Jersey.
In my dreams, Voros is brought in for one last look. The last look is indeed the last look, as he does nothing to make the coach feel that his size delivers anything. The coach realizes that the physically smaller guy delivers more than the physically bigger guy. The other guy brought up for another look basically displays little interest at all in proving himself. The coach has a mini-epiphany and realizes that his interest level in keeping such players should be commensurately lower.
Great strides are made.
In the morning, I wake from my dream, feeling tormented and running to my internetsky-connected-computing-device and finding that both have been traded even-up for Kovalchuk and a second rounder. I phone in sick to work, and spend the day rejoicing in my pyjamas with a bottle of 18 year old Jamesons.
But, then I really wake up, and I find that all of it was a dream. Voros is suiting up in place of Prucha again the next game. Renney says that he was resting Aaron in the latter half of the third against Anaheim because he liked what he saw from him, and does not want to overtax him.
I prepare myself mentally for the next game.
The argument that Voros is the big body for matching up against the teams with other big bodies is like the argument that Marek Malik had good size for matching up against big forwards. (FYI: MM is currently day-to-day with a lower body injury and has 5A in 35 games with Tampa)
However, it's not the size of the dog in the fight, but the fight in the dog that matters.
Prucha yes. Voros no.
jb - Whatever mojo Voros had earlier in the season, it has not been seen for some time. Coach should stop the experiments, draw the right conclusions and move on.
Who knows what would make a person choose Voros and Fritsche over Prucha and Korpikosky. I just don't see it.