Wednesday, February 20, 2008

How and Why?

With winning momentum behind The New York Rangers coming off two important wins this past weekend against Buffalo and San Jose, the Blueshirts appeared to have found the confidence needed for the playoff run. Official recap here.

Who are we kidding? Habs 6, NYR 5 SO

Last night in Montreal, the New York Rangers dominated the Habs - embarrassing their home crowd with a likely
fourth loss against the Rangers this season alone - the Blueshirts leading 5-0. It was a beautiful moment. Thoughts of grandeur, the pre-season expectations were going to be met, goals by Dubinsky, then Avery, then Shanny, then Drury, then.......what? They scored on us. Okay. It's just one.


Leading 5-0 and so they scored one? Fluke...we got a little sloppy. Four goals to defend now. No problem. The third period Tom Renney will employ his famous defensive zone system -- maybe they'll let one more go at the end, but good for us. I am a proud Rangers fan. Oh. They just scored again. Then another. Huh? What the f**k? Thirty seconds later another? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON HERE? HOW IN GOD'S NAME HAVE WE GIVEN THEM FOUR GOALS AND WE ARE ONLY LEADING BY ONE GOAL? With six minutes left in the third, we have to hold our one goal lead! Reluctant optimism on my part, I actually believed we'd hold it. Plagued by uninspiring coaching and leadership, our dear, dear Rangers let the fifth Habs goal in ending regulation at 5-5.

Thoughts of "Lundqvist is just average" and "our defense is the worst in the league" were again entering my head. This is the team I know this season. Crap.

Montreal scored five even goals the last half of the game and were taking the Rangers into overtime land. Mind you, the overtime was some of the greatest hockey seen all season and I wanted this one more than any game all season, but unfortunately, it appeared I wanted it more than anyone in the New York Rangers franchise that evening. Secretly I knew the Habs deserved to take the cereal surprise away from my Blueshirts. They earned it. The crowd earned it. The Rangers were destined to lose.

The Rangers delivered that dreaded loss - they earned it - in shootout, as All-Stars Brendan Shanahan, Chris Drury and finally Jaromir Jagr were all unable to deliver anything worthy of the win. Three misses. Three very sad attempts.

Our confidence was taken away in one game. The belief is gone. Where to go from here....

tdr

10 comments:

  1. Once again Tom Renney and his defensive system failed. All teams playing the Rangers this season watch the tapes and look for those open opportunities and capitalize on it. Against Buffalo and San jose they were lucky because the defense allowed holes and weaknessesbut both teams didn't take advantage of those flaws. Montreal was a great example of studying your opponent and never giving up. The impossible was made possible because they saw the defensive weakness. The Rangers don't belong in the playoffs. And the off season they need to dumpo everyone except Staal, Girardi and Tyutin, though they all sucked yesterday. Even Renny contines to play Malik in the final minutes of the disaster Montreal debacle. No one knows what to expect of this team because the players don't know what to expect from themselves AND their coach. Whatever Sather has up his sleeve in possible trades will not be good enough. So disappointing.

    ReplyDelete
  2. My question is, where was Henrik Lundqvist? Yes I understand all of the hoopla about systems and Renney, but the King has been less than royalty lately and a big save there would have turned the tide. This just illustrates that this is not a team that is ready to win, but maybe this will be the lesson.

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hmm, My offer to trade coaches is still on the table.



    I was flipping channels and instinctively went to this game. Then I saw it was 5-2 and I said "Eh i'll watch Minnesota/Vancouver it's only 1-0."

    I feel your pain

    ReplyDelete
  4. anonymous...ah, you have exposed them once again. the defense -- and I agree with Pucks On Broadway -- Hank was terrible: my earlier declaration of play Stephen Valiquette every other game stands -- we all love the guy, but here we go again.

    jibble...i'll take it. even swap coaching. anything to shake things up. how about i just become an avs fan and we swap loyalties -- I'd be happy to cover a colorado game on your blog -- a fresh perspective and I'll let you do the same here in Dark-ness. Oy.

    FOPPA!!!!! FOPPA!!!!! HOW YOU WOULD HAVE SAVED THE WORLD IF IT WEREN'T FOR THAT DAMN TOENAIL!!!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. New York Rangers yesterday's game against Canadiens was a pure acknowledgement that Rangers is a pathetic team. Such ashame .
    "Wizard" Renney's "system" sucks. Malik, Jagr and Mara look like they are playing against their team. Especially Malik. Scott Gomes makes $10mln/year, and the only thing we see from him is his flamboyant interviews in the "Inside The Rangers" show about how good he is in fishing.

    ReplyDelete
  6. Deal. e-mail me and we'll set up some games to watch. (jibblescribbits@gmail.com)

    And deal we can both change coaching staffs to shake things up.. we want to keep Hackett though, you can keep your goalie coach.

    ReplyDelete
  7. And you guys think I am too negative. The entire structure collapsed last night and did you see the look behind the bench.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Do the Rangers have enough youth to pry away Sundin from Toronto?
    Say goodbye to Jagr, Straka and company at the end of this season as a new generation takes charge led by the King, Gomez, Drury and Stall. My concern is that this group isn't as well positioned as the 2008 Rangers with a trade or two for a run at Lord Stanley.

    BlueNationLeafs

    ReplyDelete
  9. Can we stop calling him the King? I mean, seriously folks ... Ever since he took that first game off against Toronto, he has been more pauper than prince. I like him, don't get me wrong, but more and more he is beginning to look like a Steve Penney, Jim Carey, or Roman Turek. Something needs to happen before he fades back into obscurity like those other guys.

    As for the rest, as I said on my blog, leadership is what keeps a team poised - the Rangers lost all poise and control last night. Its time for a change - captain, coach, something ...

    ReplyDelete
  10. I agree Scotty. My newest post is 'ode to Scotty' and your demotion.

    ReplyDelete

This site/blog is not affiliated with the New York Rangers or The National Hockey League in any manner whatsoever. Some photos on this site are used w/out permission but are hosted on the blogger server, therefore not interfering with the profit or bandwidth of the original owner. If you are the owner of a specific image that we have used in our blog , please email me at amv613@hotmail.com to have it removed - we will gladly remove it immediately.

If you have a hockey blog/website and would like to place a link on our site, please contact me & we can do a link exchange (the best way to get more traffic to our blogs).

Any offer of 'tickets at cost' is exactly that -- I have season tickets and will sell them for what I paid --- so no mark-ups.

The Dark Ranger is a not-for-profit site, not officially, but we derive no income at all from anything on this site; in fact, DARK at his own expense enjoys the freedom of having no sponsors and speaking his f*cking mind.