Sunday, January 13, 2008

What We Expect Of Our Team, Rangers 4, Habs 1

It's too bad every game cannot be against Montreal.

It was a celebratory night as The New York Rangers ended their five-game winless streak, and knocked out the Montreal Habs with four-sucker punches,
4-1. New York is 2-4-1 in its last seven games, with both wins coming against our favorite opponent at the Garden -- four wins in the last four home meetings with the Habs. It was the Canadiens' first regulation loss since Dec. 23 (5-0-2), despite eight power plays.

The system works when you play disciplined hockey.

Similar to the Rangers previous game (and loss) to Philadelphia, it was a game full of penalties by our Blueshirts, including two 5-on-3's, the difference this time our special team built for killing penalties managed the job - all of them. The defense finally played defense for a change, with the exception of a ridiculous Marek Malik turnover that could have changed the tone of the game, had the Canadiens delivered on the shot. Lucky for us.

Despite his -12 for the season, newcomer Chris Drury delivered on the first goal and looked strong as he buried himself into Habs goalkeeper Christobal Huet's far post throughout the game. It is a pleasure to see a consistent player, like Drury, playing the post looking for dirty goals. Jaromir Jagr actually skated hard throughout, Martin Straka, Petr Prucha and Nigel Dawes delivered on excellent goals, and our mentally ailing goalkeeper
Henrik Lunqvist looked sharp, focused and unstoppable.

May this all continue 'hopeful Rangers fans' as it feels good seeing the win; it is what we expect of our team when we are on the verge of making/breaking the playoffs.

Currently The Rangers are in last place in the Atlantic Division and ninth place in the Eastern Conference standings (21-19-5). We are four wins away from the top division seed and four losses away from the worst team in the Conference, so needless to say, the race will be a close one. In order to secure and guarantee a spot in the playoffs, the Blueshirts will have to win two of every three games for the remainder of the season - a streak we haven't seen since this time last year.

Can history be repeated? Better yet, can last night be repeated?

tdr

5 comments:

  1. The system works when you play disciplined hockey.

    They didn't do that (altho the officiating can be questioned), they just received better goaltending that offset the lack of discipline ... you can't say that there was any when there were two, two 5-on-3s ...

    ReplyDelete
  2. I have had some Rangers fans show up on my site asking about the availability of Liles, and frankly I've read numerous sources saying he's being shopped around.

    I know the Rangers want an offensive D, and a backup goalie, and I was thinking

    Liles, and Budaj (and maybe a pick) for Montoya. Would that work from a Rangers perspective?

    ReplyDelete
  3. Absolutely. Montoya provides value to those franchises that are re-building and there were rumors of Petr Prucha as part of a trade with the Avs or Blue Jackets - we love these guys, but we don't see much of them (especially Prucha underachieving this year).

    Don Maloney left the Rangers for Phoenix having built an arsenal of rookies and prospects -- so I would imagine in typical Slats form, he will trade the new young talent for veteran support.

    The Slats Way.

    How would an Avs fan feel about that?

    ReplyDelete
  4. Well I think all the fans here like Budaj, but our coach isn't giving him a chance, and he'll be a goner. Theo is gone after this season. Liles is going to be replaced with Cumisky, so both of those guys are expendable to the Franchise.

    So Liles and Buds for Montoya and Prucha sounds good to me. Not sure we need a LW, but we'll take him anyways.

    ReplyDelete

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