The Good: Doing what you are supposed to do on a power play ie. crisp, concise passing, moving bodies around in the zone down low led to Del Zotto's pass to Stepan for his second of the year. Another beautiful pass from Stepan to Gaborik on a 2 on 1 to provide an insurance goal in the middle of the third period. Stepan is having himself a helluva week, he's been really seeing the ice well lately. Also how fortunate are the Rangers to have such good goaltender backing up Lundqvist. Biron again was solid in net tonight.
The Bad: Hard to complain after pitching a shutout but not being able to score on successive power plays including an extended 5 on 3 in the third period is troubling. The Rangers power play was pretty good on the first half of the homestand but terrible the last half. Torts seemed thrilled giving Avery a pat on the butt last night.
The Ugly: Look the Rangers have clearly turned a corner this season, it started rough and ugly over in Europe and the following road trip in Canada even though they did win 3 of 4 games. Things clearly changed following the win against San Jose that started the Rangers 4 game winning streak. It's certainly possible that Joe Thornton's 'soft' comments lit a white hot fire under the Rangers and they proceeded to rip off 3 more wins to finish the homestand. This Rangers team is far too talented to be the Rangers team that started the season slow and undisciplined. It's a long season which will have its ebbs and flows and hopefully the Rangers can keep the momentum up as they only play 8 more games for the rest of November.
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