The Good: Nice overall win tonight by the Rangers. Perhaps they were a little too pass happy at the start, the Rangers started shooting the puck and were rewarded a goal with a little over 5 minutes left. Dubinsky went coast to coast, out muscling 2 Islander players and buried a shot by Nabokov, in front of Mark Streit who was anticipating picking off a cross ice pass. The Rangers second goal appeared to be a set play and it came from the red hot Marian Gaborik. Anisimov won a draw, pushed the puck forward and quickly found Gaborik for his league leading 20th goal. In addition to Gaborik, Jonathan Toews, Phil Kessel, and Steven Stamkos are all tied at the top with 20 goals. The Rangers third goal stretched the lead to 3-1. Prust took a pass at the Islander blue line from Anton Stralman. Looking for Fedotenko, Prust's pass deflected off an Islander defender and found Michael Del Zotto cross ice who ripped a bouncing puck, five hole, past Nabokov at 15:25 of the second period. The Rangers final goal was an empty netter from John Mitchell to ice the game with 1:33 remaining in the third period.
The Bad: The Islanders got on the board just 18 seconds into the second period. With McDonagh off serving a penalty he acquired in the first period, the puck found Mark Streit who ripped a shot on Biron who made the initial save, but the rebound immediately found former Ranger PA Parenteau for the putback. The Islanders second goal and second power play goal at 8:29 of the third period made things interesting for a little while. Mark Streit shot the puck in at Biron who made a good glove save but couldn't handle a rebound and Matt Moulson fired the long rebound past Biron.
The Ugly: The one and only real complaint I had tonight was that the Rangers PK was uncharacteristically bad. The PK gave up 2 goals out of 3 Islander power plays. That cannot happen against better teams as those will kill you. The botched icing call with 3 minutes left in the third period that nearly lead to an Okposo goal could also have been a killer. Tonights win was the Rangers 20th win of the season and a regulation win against the Flyers tomorrow will put the Rangers in a virtual tie with the Flyers atop the Eastern Conference heading into the Christmas break.
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