The Good: The Rangers first goal was developed out of a play that the Rangers badly missed last season. Del Zotto found Gaborik on a home run pass of a shorter variety and Gaborik split the Coyotes defensemen and beat Coyotes goalie Mike Smith through the wickets at 8:34 of the first period. Gabby did it again just 1:09 into the third period when Keith Yandle fanned on a pass from behind his own net, coughed it up right to Gaborik and after Smith made the initial save, Gaborik scored on his own rebound. The game winner as we all went nuts about came from Brad Richards with one tenth of a second left. Richards threw the puck at the net, deflected off Keith Yandle's skate and Smith whiffed on the puck with his glove hand. Absolutely an unbelievable goal.
Two other things of note: Rupp was very noticeable throwing his body around in his first game back. The Hagelin-Boyle-Mitchell line was excellent tonight. Hagelin's speed and forechecking ability is second to none. Now if Boyle can only learn to stay in front of the net to screen the goalie and bang in rebounds he just may figure out how to score goals again...
The Bad: Both Coyote goals came very late in the first and second periods and both could have gone either way. At the end of the first period, Boyd Gordon beat Christensen off a draw badly right to former Ranger (of course) Lauri Korpikoski scored past Biron with just 9 seconds left. The Coyotes took the lead with 52 seconds remaining in the second period when Shane Doan threw the puck at the goal and after some pinballing around in front of Biron who appeared to have closed his glove hand on the puck wound up on Cal O'Reilly's stick for an easy put back.
The Ugly: Let us look at this realistically. The Rangers were insanely lucky to be able to win tonight. Keith Yandle who is an all star defenseman in his own right, coughed up the puck to Marian Gaborik of all people in front of the Coyotes net, to Brad Richards scoring with one tenth of a second left in the game? Lets not let the Rangers good fortunes tonight get in the way of all the crap Torts has been trying to pull. I've been very supportive of him, but putting Erik Christensen on the ice to take a draw during a Ranger power play in the defensive zone at the end of a period is one of the worst coaching decisions I've ever seen anyone make. The Hagelin-Boyle-Mitchell line was probably the Rangers best line even strength tonight and didn't get a chance together on the power play cause Torts has it in for Christensen for some reason. Absolutely baffling.
The Rangers will be home for the holidays as they play the Devils for the first time this season on Tuesday and they don't have to jump back on a plane for the next 10 days.
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