Friday, March 7, 2008

Rangers 4, Bad Guys 1


Hola New Yorkers. Jibblescribbits here to recap your game against the hated Islanders. Hopefully my cable holds up through the game this time. Official recap here

Just so you guys know here's my thoughts on the Rangers before going forward. I am a huge fan of Chris Drury, and Henrik Lundqvist. I like Staal, Rosival, and really don't mind Gomez, despite his Devils days. However, I don't like Shanahan, due to his Red Wings days, and I think Jagr is kind of a whiny baby. Of course like all hockey fans, I hate Avery. But don't worry Rangers fans, that won't bias my recap, and overall I like the Rangers. So without further adieu here we go.

18:30: 1-0 Blueshirts. Shannahan scores as I barely settle in on the delayed penalty. Not really sure why a penalty was called, but how do you give up a breakaway, a clean one, to a 90-year old man on a delayed penalty. It took a 1:30 before reminding me I’m not in the Western Conference anymore Toto. Still a very nice pass by Nigel Dawes to set him uo.

12:00ish Rangers seem to forget that it’s in the Islander’s advantage if the Ranger’s don’t get the puck past that little Blue line. Lundqvist bails them out big time. He looks sharp

10:45 Backup Isles goalie (Dubli-what’s his face) makes a great save. How the hell did that not go in. Isles announcers think it may have hit the post. (Yup Avery hit the post, on the far side. Wow, how the hell do you miss that?)

9:54 PK. The Isles PP looks like the Avs. I’m surprised they haven’t been whistled for icing yet. 2 vs 1 broken up nicely by the Isles defender (not sure who it was) Drury gets back in transition to break up the Isles PP rush. Very nice kill for the Blueshirts

6:36 2-0 Blueshirts. Avery doesn’t miss that one, nice deflection on a really nice pass by Marik Malik (Really? I had to couble check this one when I looked it up since I missed who did it in real time.) . Really crappy D by #3 Davidson .

6:35 “Avery Sucks” comes down from the rafters. Listen I hate Avery as much as the next non-Rangers fan, but after he just completely worked your team isn’t the best time to taunt him. That chant may have been a little better after he hit the post on the wide open net earlier.

3:33 Jagr hits the post. Other than a little flurry earlier, the Rangers are dominating their cross-town rivals.

2:29 PP Rangers.

2:06 The first close up of Tom Renney. If he grew a killer ‘Stache, he could be Quenneville’s brother. Apparently they coach alike as well.

1:44 Backup goalie makes a huge save on Drury on the PP. Drury would have missed the net anyways. 2 open nets, 0 goals for the Rangers. I want to remind everyone that the Avs powerplay is worse than a team’s that misses open nets. Not that I’m bitter.

1st Period Notes: I’m going to also watch Ducks-Avs tonight. The Ducks have the most physical (ok dirty) team in the league, and the Avs can make some hits. This has been completely different than a Western Conference game. It is nice to see open hockey with lots of goal scoring chances.

2nd period

16:30 Rangers turnover leads to a Mike Comrie-Duff pass for a nice shot that just misses the net by some Islander.

14:16 Satan with the wraparound, but Jesus saves…errrr Lundqvist saves.

13:33 Malik decides to try playing the “So you think you can ice dance” defense. It doesn’t work and the Isles draw a Penalty. PK Rangers

12:16 Rosival decides the Islanders PP sucks so bad they need some help and shoots the puck over the glass. 5 vs 3 against the Rangers.

12:12 Lundqvist with a nice save off the faceoff.

11:18 Malik tries to celebrate the end of the 5 vs 3 by taking another penalty. The refs don’t call it and the Rangers don’t get scored on.

10:56 there’s that icing on the Power play. The Isles DO have the Avs PP.

10:00 left in the period, the Rangers have 1 shot this period, and I still feel like they are controlling play.

9:28 2-1 Goal Isles and just like that a Bergenheim shot and deflects of 2 Rangers and then into the net. Unlucky goal against the Rangers, but it could be a momentum changer.

5:25 Avery takes a really stupid penalty, at possibly the worst time of the game. Of course the Isles PP has looked pitiful, so it may not be too bad.

4:45 Comrie-Duff Denied by Lundqvist on the doorstep. Hillary can’t be happy.

1:22 Drury has the 3rd shot of the period for the Rangers. Maybe Renney really does channel his inner “ Quenneville” and plays the “Hold on for dear life” strategy after getting a lead.

:51 PP Rangers. Game has slowed down quite a bit.

Notes: Jaromir Jagr may just be the slowest player in the NHL. How the hell this guy scores goals, a lot of them nonetheless, is beyond me. No wonder Gomez and him weren’t good linemates. Gomez might be able to skate up down and back up the ice before Jagr gets there. A terrible 2nd period but only one goal against.

3rd period

Sweet! technical difficulties to start the period. Like Towlie, I have no idea what’s going on.

18:01 I see the Rangers scored again, but again technical difficulties kept me from seeing it. That's two technical difficulties in 3 days. I really do know how to use a TV.

13:30 I am back and they are on the PP, that's certainly good news.

11:11 more technical difficulties. I think something’s wrong with my cable. But just enough to see the Rangers miss ANOTHER open net.

And the cable goes completely out, so I lost the rest of the game.

So I missed pretty much the entire 3rd period due to a pretty crappy cable connection, and technical difficulties (As much as I'd like to blame Comcast, this one was my fault actually), luckily NHL.com has pretty good highlights, and I got to see Gomez's tip in off the Staal shot.The Rangers, despite being up by a good margin, only gave up 3 shots in the 3rd so they must have dominated the game from there on out. I also wish that ENer that Avery had would have gone wide. Not because I didn't want him to score, but I'm curious to see if a) they would make Avery take a penalty shot against no one, or b) they'd award him credit for the goal if it was just awarded?.

Overall the Rangers looked impressive tonight, even if they aren't physical enough. Lundqvist gave up one fluky goal and was strong in the short bursts he needed to be and the Rangers dominated they're cross-town rivals for an important victory. It would have been better last week before I was eliminated from the Fantasy Hockey playoffs (you to Shanahan). Rangers picked up an important win, and I had fun watching an Eastern Conference game.

The Islanders Radio network chose the three stars, and they chose:
Lundqvist
Avery
Shanahan

I probably would have chosen:
Lundqvist
Gomez
Dawes

(Gomez had a goal and drew the penalty that lead to Shanny's breakaway goal. He looked pretty strong on the ice tonight. Dawes had a sweet sweet assist and some nice defensive plays. He finished at +2 with 2 assists.)


5 comments:

  1. qWhat's up with the wit and nice talk? Bring on the hate and anger of the Dark Ranger style. Strong perspective but the team sucks and Jagr's new nickname is The Crouton..STALE STALE BREAD!
    He sucks and adds zero value.
    Dark Ranger please help us understand where our Captain is?

    BlueNationLeafs

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  2. Classic Leafs response, jibbles...expect it here at TDR. I cannot imagine Jags will re-sign as he is getting slower and slower, and funny to look back at Tom Renney playing Jagr and Gomez on the same line. Even an outsider can point out in one game that they don't belong in the same speed-league!

    BlueNation...first of all re: "our Captain"....'your' Captain stayed in Toronto to the detriment of the team, but that's another story..congrats on the slaughter last night.

    Jibbles, thanks a million for the great coverage -- you might want to look into an I.T. person for your personal hockey recording, I hear Bettman is working on a deal for home subscribers. Maybe that will work. Secondly, on your Lundqvist comments, remember that Jesus ultimately died for his sins and the sins of others, so maybe that was a bad foreshadowing. Last night he was marvelous, which is the King Doppelganger (sp?) we rely on, as opposed to the Pauper who you missed on Tuesday's Isles misfortune. It is too bad you missed the gameplay of the third period, as you would have seen the Avs/Rangers crossover approach to being ahead by one goal. Defensive lockdown and rapid line-changing...but in this case, the Isles turnovers turned into Blueshirt goals.

    A fresh, funny pro-Rangers take...appreciate it. Feel free with authorship to chime in whenever you'd like. If you're invited into TDR...you are always welcome as long as there is six degrees of Blueshirt separation.

    tdr

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  3. Last nite was the team we like, the one when Lundquist plays like the King. Though the one goal was soft he did a fairly good job on some big plays. Pleaze...Hank, turn your game around....

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  4. Nice Jibbles, I just wish your damn tv would work right ...

    But as for the Isles fans taunting Avery after he has been pwning them? No one said they were an intelligent fan base.

    And the line of the day, perhaps the season, was "Malik decides to try playing the “So you think you can ice dance” defense. It doesn’t work."

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  5. Thanks for the kind words all.

    And my IT problem was a classic Id10t problem. When I connected the new TiVo last week, I didn't get the cord all the way in apparently. So when the cat walked by it, around the beginning of the third period, it knocked it loose enough to screw up the signal

    ReplyDelete

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