Some call him The King. I call him The Prince. Soon we all will be calling him the greatest goalie in Ranger history, sorry Chuck, Gumper and Eddie. Henrik Lundqvist put on another show at the Garden last night. It was a classic. In fact it was classic Lundqvist. He made 31 saves and picked up the 6th shutout of the year and the 30th of his career.
It wasn't easy. The Canucks have the best point total in the NHL. They have the most wins of any team in the NHL. They have the third highest goals scored in the NHL. They came in on a 14-0-3 run in regulation. These were the creme de le creme of the NHL. Plus they have the Sedin twins, Henrik and Daniel.
All Lundqvist needed was a goal and he got that from the new wizard of 33rd Street, Wojtek Wolski who banged in a power play goal off of a shot by Marian Gaborik. Gaborik later missed putting the game away on a breakaway as he shot the puck into the pads of the young backup goalie, Cory Schneider, who was no slouch and came up with 34 saves as his record fell to 8-1-2.
But Lundqvist was the story. The Rangers still can't score. They were 1-3 on the power play to "improve" to 4-38 in their last twelve games. So this could have been another one of those 2-1 losses. Boyle and his line played a ton. Drury played too much. Avery got a little over six minutes and he and Weiss saw no ice time in the third period. At least I don't remember Sam calling their names in the third period. Maybe he is still mad at Avery for scoring the winning goal in St. Louis.
This team will go only so far as Henrik Lundqvist will carry them and right now the King, Prince, the Greatest is going well and is on the proverbial roll. We will chant Let's Go Rangers, but what we really say is long live The King, The Prince, The Greatest.......Aah, you know what I mean.
ICINGS: Wonderful news. Fran Pizzani is back home and recovering. Our prayers continue to go out to him and his family and thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers.
MacKinnon tops Stastny's franchise points mark
3 minutes ago
Well, another huge screwup in Montreal.
Some things never change, even though NYR could put the Habs 6 feet under if they got their crap together. The third period was all you needed to see for proof of that. Maddening what they did for the majority of the first 40 minutes. They looked like proper shite (not talking to you Henrik).
Come on Rangers, you have to fix this (definitely not talking to Henrik here). No good reason to keep losing to the Canadiens. None.
Dubinsky had his #1 stupid game of the year. Forget about getting even with Subban on Feb. 5, NYR's next kick at the Habs. Try to score some goals instead. Say what you will folks, but Subban played a really good game last night and got the last laugh.
Maybe the powerplay will be clicking, I mean working even marginally by Feb. 5, dare I hope?
blow-me-down-A lot of maybes, could bes and hope fors. Do you think coach disagreeable might have something to do with it?