Rangers fall 2-1 against Boston, clinching first on hold

I'm going to be moving away from the good, bad, ugly format to my game reviews from here until the end of the year and just post some thoughts I took away from each contest.

There's 2 things I took away from Sunday nights contest. First was the apparent confusion inside the locker room of what the Rangers needed to do in order to wrap up the one seed. I firmly believe that Torts never brought up what they had to do in order clinch first, but as a player I believe it's important to know exactly where your opponents are in relation to where you stand in the overall picture of things. Brandon Prust likely knew what the Rangers had to do after inquiring to newyorkrangers.com before the game about who had won the Flyers-Penguins matchup earlier Sunday afternoon. After the game, Marc Staal told reporters he had no idea the Rangers simply had to take Sunday's game into overtime to clinch first.

The second thing is the sense of complacency the Rangers had for a large stretch of Sunday's game. Following Marion Gaborik's opening tally at 4:33 of the first period, the Rangers seemed more than content to sit back and play defense. So much defense, in fact the Rangers only finished with 5 shots on goal in the first period after not registering a shot in the final 11+ minutes of the first period. The Rangers never really turned the pressure up again on Bruins goalie Tim Thomas until the Rangers went on their second power play with less than 1 minute left in the first and were rewarded with a brief 5 on 3 early in the third period, which the Rangers were unable to capitalize. The Rangers finished with 19 shots in the third period alone and 34 shots overall. The Rangers obvious lack of urgency for about 35 minutes cost them from clinching in front of their fans.

I'm sure Ranger fans won't complain if the Rangers sweep the season series with Philadelphia on Tuesday, who have been snakebitten by a Ranger team all season that simply has worked harder game in and game out and have come out undefeated in the season series. The Flyers do have home ice at stake in their likely series against Pittsburgh and will have something to play for. Also, I'm sure the Rangers will get the Flyers best game so the Flyers can prove to themselves that they can hang with the Rangers in a potential series down the road.

RELAX RANGER FANS!!!