On a night when the Canucks honored one of their fallen brothers, Rick Rypien, they put on quite an offensive performance firing 40 shots at Ranger goalie Henrik Lundqvist but to no avail. Lundqvist was superb. Brilliant. I have run out of adjectives to describe this wonderful athlete. The Canuck's never had a chance, even though they outshot the Rangers 40-19.
The Rangers who were totally ineffective the first two periods exploded for four goals on ten shots in the third period. The goal scorers were Rupp (1), McDonagh (1), Boyle (1) and Gaborik (3). But the story was and will continue to be, Lundqvist. The shutout was his 36th of his career and he is closing in on Eddie Giacomin's record of 49.
The Rangers continued to take too many penalties. However, the Canucks were 0-8 on the power play mostly due to the play of Lundqvist. The Rangers outburst in the third period was most welcome and hopefully it will get the team out of the scoring doldrums it has been in. What I found most encouraging was that only one goal was scored by a 'goal scorer'.
So now there seems to be some hope as the tour heads East back to the Garden. I would still like to see more consistency in the use of the lines and the time alloted to certain players. But Christmas is coming and who knows what awaits us from Santa.
ICINGS: Dale Weise who was cut by the Rangers played last night for the Canucks. He played on the fourth line, with the same players and got 8:37 of ice time. That was the least of any Canuck, but more ice time than three Rangers. Weise wasn't good enough to make the Rangers, but apparently has made the team that won the Western Conference last year.
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I've never seen 'The King' better, than last night. And against a very good team. The Vancouver fans were cussing him out all night on their message boards.
MVP performance by Lundqvist
You're right Pundit, this team is only going as far as Henrik can take them. I'm afraid though that having 40 shots at him every game is going to wear him down before Christmas...
What will other teams do to beat Lundqvist if he's on this year? They will start running into him to rough him up and break his concentration. Rupp and Prust better get ready to guard the King.
What is going on? The Rangers scoring off the rush, and making it look like they do it all the time.
That part was a rare treat, but letting Henrik get peppered like that was the other side of the coin. Yikes.
That's a heck of a start to the road trip, but I sure hope they can tighten up on defense.
Hopefully Lundqvist can last through Christmas.
With the amount of ice time that Rupp and Prust get its doubtful they will be able to protect Henrik much.
If the defense tightens the offense goes into the tank. Take your poison.