It's always a good night when you post a win. It's a better night when you post a win against a 'rival'. It's a great night when you post a win against a 'rival' and you eliminate them from the playoff race. That's what happened yesterday at the Garden. The Rangers ousted a frustrated Devil team from the playoffs. The Devils took two misconduct penalties and had their coach Peter DeBoer tossed from the game with 16 seconds left. Oh, how the mighty have fallen. From Stanley Cup finalists to elimination from the playoffs; by their most hated 'rivals', the Rangers no less.
It started early with Captain Crunch, Ryan Callahan, finding the back of the net at the 34 second mark and ending with Callahan's power play goal that made it 4-0. Andrei Loktionov scored with six and a half left in the game to spoil Lundqvist's shutout. Lundqvist made 26 saves, a subdued Brodeur, serenaded by his 'friends', had 18. The Rangers are putting up a season best 8-2-1 going for the final tape, a playoff berth.
With three games left the Rangers are three points ahead of the Winnipeg Jets. They are tied with the Ottawa Senators who have a game in hand on the Rangers. The Islanders are one point ahead of us in 6th place with three games left. The Rangers seem a cinch for the playoffs with games against Florida, Carolina and the Devils. But you never know.
Meanwhile, in the other conference, our JV team, the Bluejackets, are hanging on to a three point lead over Detroit that has four games left to two games left for Columbus. Columbus is tied with Minnesota for 7th and Minnesota has three games left. It's fun watching the hockey channel at night. Would you believe that Jaromir Jagr has sixteen goals as the Bruins are battling the Canadiens for the top spot in the Northeast and the number two seed in the Eastern Conference? But he'd never make this Ranger team. He doesn't enjoy the corners and doesn't block shots, just score goals. What an antiquated idea.
Monday, April 22, 2013
Rangers Oust Rival Devils
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I can't complain about all of these goals. I've been saying this team can score goals for a long time. Even though many of these goals have been "good bounces." Just sweeping the puck at the net and wrap arounds seem to be doing the trick as these pucks are finding skates and all kinds of ways to go in. Like we always say right here in the comments, just get the puck to the net and see what kind of luck you can create. Funny thing is, I said to Jeanine after the game yesterday that I don't really feel like the Rangers are playing very much different and I can't explain why they've had such good fortune scoring goals. I thought I was crazy to feel that way until when asked about it after the game yesterday Ryan Callahan said the Rangers are doing nothing different but bounces have been going their way. That confirms I'm not crazy at least. The Devils helped us out a lot yesterday. They looked tentative to start the game and it cost them dearly. Then they had a personal war going on with referee Rooney that apparently started last year in the finals. When the Devils won 2 games in a row, I was excited they were still hanging on by a thread because it set up for a really good rival game but it was more like the Devils were fighting themselves and the refs and the Rangers were like "ok while your preoccupied we're just going to score some goals, grab our 2 points and head off to Florida for some R&R. See ya!" More Bizarre stuff if you ask me. Rangers got away with two blatant too many men on the ice calls. One we had SEVEN men on the ice and the other we had six guys on all were over the red line and in the play. The refs ignored it to grind their ax but I'm sitting there saying uh-oh, don't start this too many men thing again. They won't ignore it when we are playing Pittsburgh (if we play them) that's for sure.
All in all scoring is always a good thing and seeing the puck go in the net 18 times in a three game span just helps the confidence of the offensive players. A twitter friend told me that he thinks if the Rangers keep playing like this they can beat anybody. Not feeling that yet. I'm hoping we line up with Boston because they have a lot of weaknesses and whoever gets them will beat them in my opinion. The Pens are strong and determined not to repeat their first round blunder of last year. The only way anyone will beat them is if the swiss cheese version of Marc Andre shows up. I was watching them play Boston on Saturday and I was impressed even though it was probably not their best game. Bruins came out strong but Pens played them really well. Burned them with their PP to get the points. They're missing Crosby, Malkin and James Neil and they are still a tough club to beat. They are a beast. Caps are surging now and Ovechkin looks like the real Ovie again. Just when we thought it was safe lol, and Montreal is slipping as of late but one team we know they would love to see is us. I don't have any desire to see them. So Boston would be the lucky draw and since coach disagreeable has total power and can kick anyone to the curb he wants to at any given time, we all know he isn't going anywhere. Would love to see the Rangers win for Henrik, but we have a long way to go. However, the way the NHL is set up, as long as your in it you have a chance of some sort. You gotta be in it to win it.
Officiating was atrocious in that game. So bad that i turned it off after the 3rd goal. Devils had almost nothing to begin with and the refs were handing calls to us and screwing NJ big time. It's actually quite sad that in the game that determines everything for the Devils they have some blowhard officiating crew come in and control the game. Ah well, see ya later jersey...
I went to the sharks/blue jackets game on Sunday evening in San Jose and let me just say WOW. CBJ was faster, tougher, worked harder and, get this, were solid on offense AND defense. So great to see Dubi and Gabby tearing it up, seriously looked like they were playing their best hockey i've seen in so long.
After the game I waited outside the opposing teams hangar in hopes of chatting with Dubi and Gabby. It took a while but sure enough they came walking out together and saw me holding my two jerseys (rangers home Dubi and away Gaborik) and they just started walking towards me with smiles. These are class guys that chatted with me for a solid 10 minutes. I asked them how good it felt to be out of NY and they just giggled and said "pretty damn good so far!" Asked about Torts and they just shook their heads and said "well, he has his own agenda and we'll just leave it at that" (that was Dubi, Gabby just shook his head lol). They signed the jerseys delightfully before catching the bus. I asked them, lastly, how Avery is doing since all of the bull shit from last year and the response from Gabby was "He's the only one that handled that situation correctly, like a man". Bam. Highlight of my year for sure. I like watching that team so much more than the rangers. Even when the rangers are winning i look up and see Fonzi and everything is ruined. I hear chants of Marty from the Garden on Sunday and see no Sean Avery. Just not right.
But we are a playoff team and we all know torts is wearing the pants in his relationship with Sather, so i gotta get used to this clown coaching my favorite team for a long while. Really, really sad. Ah well, go rangers...
Andy, thank you for the inside story, very interesting info. Confirms what we have been thinking about Torts.
No problem JB, my privilege. Thought everyone would enjoy it, and I couldn't be happier for those two. Great guys. Too bad Artie is injured, would have loved to have met him.