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Saturday, February 11, 2012

Good, Bad, Ugly: Captain Cally's hattie leads the Rangers to victory in Philly

The Good: The Rangers opened the scoring at 8:25 of the first period miraculously on the power play with Brad Richards simply skating the puck up ice, who then fed Gaborik at the top of the circles, and he found Callahan along the goal line next to a down and out Bobrovsky and Cally banked it in for a 1-0 lead. Only if all the power play goals were that easy. The Rangers made it 2-1 when the Flyers let Gaborik skate the puck into their end, connected with a cross ice pass to Stepan who quickly got the puck back to Richards at the point and he found Gaborik alone in front of the net and re-directed Richards' pass behind Bobrovsky at 16:40 of the first. The Rangers took the lead for good at 9:15 of the second period, again on the power play. Brad Richards again sets up the entire play and the Rangers with some quick passing, Richards to Gaborik to Del Zotto across the crease to Callahan for his second of the game. The Rangers made it 4-2 with Anisimov getting on the board. Not too long after getting robbed by Bobrovsky, Stepan, following some back and forth passing with Gaborik found Artie cross ice for his 9th of the season. Callahan completed his hat trick just 5 minutes after the Anisimov's goal, potting home a rebound of a Brad Richards shot at the bottom of the right circle.

The Bad: All you need to know is Simmonds tied the game at 1 off of a lucky tip and Giroux beat Hank on a breakaway off a miserable line change by the Rangers to make it 2-2, ho-hum.

The Ugly: It simply does not matter where the Rangers and Flyers play, indoors or outdoors, NYC or Philadelphia, the Rangers have thoroughly dominated the Flyers this year out-scoring them 19-8 in 5 games. The writing was on the wall when the Flyers lost Pronger for the season, leaving their already pedestrian blue line very vulnerable to a team like the Rangers who will wear and grind you down for 60 minutes (in most games.) The simple fact that the Flyers easily let the Rangers score 3 power play goals against them after the Rangers have only scored just 3 power play goals in the 2012 calendar year is downright embarrassing. CSN Philly also showed a graphic that the Flyers PK has a 78% success rate at home which has to be at the bottom of the league. The Rangers, more so Lundqvist, are in the back of the Flyers minds and their frustration clearly showed on the ice today. Fun fact: today was the Rangers 35th win of the year, a feat they didn't accomplish last year until March 6th, a 7-0 laugher against the Flyers at the Garden.

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