Sitting on my couch watching the Ranger/Senator game with some of my boys, a few guys stood out to me more than anyone else on the ice: Brandon Dubinsky, Nigel Dawes, Michael Del Zotto, Petr Prucha, Ryan Callahan, Corey Potter, and Mika Wikman. Dubinsky scored a pair of beautiful goals (skating with lots of confidence with the puck), Dawes and Prucha's line with Drury in between them seemed to have good chemistry with one another, they just couldn't bury the puck. The rest of the supporting guys all skated hard, hit as often as they could (which really made me jump for joy), and took a lot of shots (even out shooting the Sens, 36-19). I realized that even though my team was losing, I was very pleased with the play of all the guys I listed and for the team as a whole. The Sens dressed pretty much their entire NHL squad (minus Alfredsson and a couple 3rd & 4th line guys) and our young guys and backup goaltenders played a close game with them, even out shooting and outplaying them from the end of the 1st period on. The Rangers and all their fans should be more than pleased that we outplayed a good team without our insane top line of Naslund-Gomez-Zherdev, Redden-Girardi, Lundqvist...Now that is an accomplishment.
Monday should be an interesting game, with the rest of our team and Lundqvist take on the Sens for a rematch. The best we can wish for is that the Blue Team (the name given to this squad during training camp) plays just as well as the White Team did yesterday, and that when they are put together to form the full New York Rangers roster, we can all enjoy a successful Cup Run.
7 more games of this pre season bullshit and then we can finally watch how all of the summer predictions, trades and rumors play out..woo hooo!!
Oh I almost forgot, Blair Betts and Michal Rozsival wore the "A"s and yepp, you guessed it, Number 23, Chris Drury wore the New York Ranger "C". What a surprise..
~syr11
This was only the first pre-season game of the NHL season, so I dont think getting ahead of ourselves here is probably a good idea. I think were better off minimizing our expectations. With that said, Brandon Dubinsky definately showed some serious potential the other night on the ice against Ottowa. He proved to me at least that he has the potential for a 30 goal season. (talk about managing expectations) Additionally, the drury , dawes, prucha line demonstarted some promising chemistry, which will only be useful if they prove to be productive. (which means they must score goals) I wouldnt exactly call the zherdev, gomez, naslund line amazing yet, but hopefully they can prove to be a formidable top line as the season progresses. Call me a cynic, but I dont see a bright future for this years NYR hockey squad. I think we have a solid defense, solid goaltending, but i dont see where the goals will come from. Hopefully I am wrong but we shall see...
ReplyDeleteI think you are right on the money, syr.
ReplyDeleteNever forget the amazing chemistry between Scottie Gomez and Jaromir Jagr this time last year pre-season....
ReplyDeleteI haven't been paying much attention, but didn't the two of them get us the Cup this year? Hhhmm....I might be mistaken. ;)
syr11...fun post in the most optimistic way...keep it up -- many changes ahead and thanks for blogging as always.
TDR