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Saturday, November 26, 2011

Good, Bad, Ugly: Rangers shut out Flyers 2-0

The Good: I finally get to watch the Rangers play a full 60 minute hockey game. The Rangers came out today and executed their gameplan, played good defense, shut down Giroux, won individual battles along the boards and got timely goals. Congrats to Carl Hagelin getting his first NHL goal. The kid is a keeper and hopefully he stays and gets better with time. Anything that keeps Christensen off the ice is a good thing.

I want to note that during the game I tweeted that I didn't think the Rangers were too far away from a Eastern Conference Final or perhaps a Stanley Cup Final run. To elaborate while I don't think it could happen this year (never say never) but you really can't help but notice how much better the Rangers have been playing year-to-year since the lockout. The kids the Rangers have drafted in the past few seasons are beginning to work their way up to the Rangers and are extremely talented. If guys like Kreider and JT Miller play to potential and are in Rangers blue next season there's no telling how high the Rangers can go. Especially once the Rangers get rid of some of these deadweight contracts in Wolski, Christensen, Stralman, Eminger and Woywitka and use the money to re-sign homegrown guys in Del Zotto and Stepan.

The Bad: Very little to complain about today. The only thing really is the Rangers let their foot off the pedal towards the end of the first and second period. I get you can't play on a emotional high for every second of every game but if the Flyers were going to score on Lundqvist today it was during those small timeframes.

The Ugly: At the beginning of the season you couldn't help but notice this 3 game stretch around Thanksgiving the Rangers had. First on the road ending another road trip in Washington followed by 2 more tough games against Philly and Pittsburgh. So far the Rangers have passed both tests against a floundering Capitals team and a banged up Flyers team by a combined score of 8-3. The Rangers next game on Tuesday night is a measuring stick game against the Penguins.

Tuesday, November 22, 2011

Is another roster move imminent?

It's quite noticeable among us fans on twitter about the shakeups surrounding the bottom 6 players on the Rangers forward roster. Boyle has been virtually useless so far this year and I was strongly against giving him any kind of long term deal in the offseason unless Boyle was able to prove he could repeat what he was able to do last season. With Boyle signed into a 3 year contract, like quite a few of the Rangers early this year have tried to do too much with the puck in attempt to score goals. Erik Christensen has no place on this team. Prust is noticeably having a rough start to the year due to injury and probably could use some extra time off.

I'm not sure with all the success that Carl Hagelin is currently having in Hartford, how long the Rangers can afford to keep him there. I'm curious to see how well a line composed of Avery-Boyle-Hagelin would fare or if the Rangers wanted to get really bold and have them call up Zuccarello and putting Zuke and Hagelin on a line together here either with Brad Richards or Boyle and seeing what could happen from that.

I'm not sure Sather is going to be able to find a GM partner dumb enough to try to take Wolski or Christensen off the Rangers hands by the time the trade deadline comes around either. The Rangers high end prospects will be ready to compete for roster spots next season and guys like Wolski and Christensen won't be around next year anyway if the Rangers could somehow trade either guy for a late draft pick somewhere although this scenario is unlikely.

Thursday, November 17, 2011

A NHL realignment idea (Eastern Conference)

Here's my new proposal for NHL realignment, 2 conferences composed of 4 divisions.

Northeast:
Boston
Toronto
Buffalo
Montreal
Ottawa
Rangers
Islanders
New Jersey

Mid Atlantic:
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Washington
Nashville
Florida
Tampa Bay
Carolina

Here's why I think this works. The Northeast Division adds an original six team in the Rangers to the equation, reigniting old rivalries while still keeping the NYC metro area rivalries together. For the Mid Atlantic, it keeps the Pens and Flyers together after management for both teams publicly expressed concern that the NHL was thinking about moving the Penguins to the Northeast Divsion. It also adds another dimension by pairing the Caps and the Pens in the same division for the "mainstream" NHL fan (if there are any.) But nationally televised games between those two teams tend to get good TV ratings anyway so more games between the two couldn't hurt.

Scheduling would be as follows: 82 game season, each team in the division would play each other 6 times a year and play the teams in the opposite division 4 times. Remaining games would be played against random teams in the opposite conference.

NHL players namely Jarome Iginla have called for the NHL to get rid of the loser point. Well, Mr. Iginla you got your wish. I propose the NHL switch their points system so that teams that win in regulation get 3 points and teams that win in OT get 2 points. It will increase scoring so teams won't be happy to just sit back in the third period, play defense and wait for OT and an automatic point.

Finally, the playoff system gets a revamping: In the first round, instead of ranking the conference 1 through 8, the top 4 teams in the each division make the playoffs and are ranked 1-4. The 1 seed plays the 4 seed and the 2 seed plays the 3 seed. In the second round the two divisions are merged, reseeded and again the 1 seed plays 4 seed and the 2 seed plays the 3 seed. It is a bit complicated, but with expanded divisions, winning games against teams within your division now means more than ever and in my opinion the best team will come out and eventually represent the rest of the conference in the Stanley Cup Final.

Let me know what you think either by leaving a comment or tweeting me @justblueshirts

Tuesday, November 15, 2011

State of the Rangers: November Edition

What a difference 20 days make. It truly seems like a good amount of time has passed since fans wanted to ship Tortorella to Connecticut and wanted to drive Dubinsky to the airport on a plane bound for parts unknown. Since my last State of the Rangers column, the Rangers won 4 of 6 on the homestand and haven't lost since taking a bad shootout loss to the Senators on October 29. I really believe what started the Rangers incredible run were the events that followed the Rangers victory over San Jose on Halloween. As most of us know after the game, San Jose captain Joe Thornton called the Rangers the 'softest' team they played on their roadtrip. Word quickly got to Tortorella as he was asked about it during his post game press conference. You can be sure that Torts brought that back into the locker room with him.

Following that game, the Rangers went on a tear and haven't looked back. The Rangers have been winning games with offense (5-3 victory against the Habs), winning games with defense (3-0 victory against the Jets), and winning games through grinding and hard work when the puck just didn't seem to want to go in the net (2-1 SO victory against the Ducks.) When Torts does shuffle the lines, he does strike rich on occasion. Last year he paired the Prust-Boyle-Fedotenko line which was the best line for the Rangers heading down the stretch. This year its the Stepan-Anisimov-Gaborik line that has generated the most offense during the Rangers winning streak and for the Rangers to win the GAS line needs to consistently produce.

I want to quickly mention that its good to see Ryan Callahan continue to perform and play his game with the C on his chest now. It's a far cry from when guys like Drury, Jagr, and even someone like the beloved Brian Leetch seemingly crumble with the responsibility.

Speaking of contracts, the one guy that is seemingly really struggling with the weight of a new contract is Brian Boyle. Boyle, who has only 3 points so far in 15 games has really struggled and is not the same guy who surprised everyone coming out of camp last season on his way to a 21-14-35 season. Torts very recently has been putting him in the middle of Dubinsky and Callahan so hopefully the move can jumpstart him, however I'm not sure how long Boyle is going to keep Brad Richards on the third line.

Lastly, I want to mention Lundqvist. Hank has been letting up a few very un-Lundqvist like goals. It seems this year Lundqvist has let up a few soft goals that were low or very close to ice level. We were used to seeing Lundqvist when he first broke into the league consistently getting beat high glove when he did let pucks go past him. Now as a seasoned veteran in the NHL, Lundqvist has a MUCH improved glove hand and I do laugh a little inside every time I see a shooter come down the right wing and tries to beat Lundqvist high glove on his short side. But recently, like Ponikarovsky's goal last Friday is a shot that Lundqvist, un-screened should be able to handle. Nothing to full blown panic about but it's something to keep an eye on moving forward.

Thursday, November 10, 2011

Good, Bad, Ugly: Rangers run the streak to 5, beat Ottawa 3-2

The Good: How good is Derek Stepan? You can just tell that the game has really slowed down for him. For all the crap he got in the beginning of the season being stuck on the fourth line, Stepan has really turned heads with his stellar play. Anisimov did set up both of the first two Ranger goals, first pressuring Gonchar into a turnover right to Stepan who quickly found Gaborik. On the Rangers second goal, Stepan forced rookie defenseman Rundblad into a terrible turnover behind the net, the puck found its way to a driving Anisimov, and following a save by Anderson, left a rebound right in front of the net for Stepan to bury. The third Ranger goal was all Gaborik. With Gaborik and Stepan coming down ice on a 2 on 1, a flatfooted Rundblad chose to play the pass instead of stepping up to the man with the puck and Gaborik made him pay. Also, Anderson was cheating a little too much towards Stepan and left the entire short side of the net open.

The Bad: Not a great start to the first period outshot at one point 8-1 and had just 4 shots on goal total through roughly 28 minutes of the game, although the Rangers should be used to that early this season. On Ottawa's first goal, there needed to be more bodies backchecking for the Rangers as the Sens had four guys at or below the dots to the Rangers two with Callahan coming back very late. On the Sens second goal, the puck takes an unlucky bounce over Woywitka's stick at the Ranger blue line where Da Costa picks up the puck and finds a rushing Foligno for a goal. Rangers need to be better in the faceoff circle too.

The Ugly: The Rangers are on a 5 game winning streak, so its awfully hard to complain about the wins. I think it may be time to break up Dubinsky and Callahan and perhaps try Dubinsky with Gaborik and Stepan at some point to get him going. Torts did demote Dubinsky to the Prust and Boyle line towards the end of the second period and obviously that's not going to help.

Monday, November 7, 2011

Good, Bad, Ugly: Biron pitches his first shutout, NYR down the Jets 3-0

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.