Back-blogging, because instead of blogging about Saturday afternoon's game, I spent the rest of Saturday watching more hockey.
Despite how angry I was during this game, there were positive takeaways. Watching the Rangers is starting to feel more and more like watching an epic battle for a character's soul, wondering whether Siegfried or Nightmare will eventually come through...
Sorry. The point is, you no longer wonder which Ranger team is going to show up for the game, you wonder which Rangers are going to pull the team to their side for that shift, shift by shift, all game. We had a lot of very inspiring shifts. Biron was spectacular, and we just couldn't get enough by him. We had players who didn't give up right through the end.
On the other hand, the "fantastic opposing goalie, got a lot of shots in, couldn't get any by him" argument sounds like a month-ago Rangers report. And we had shifts where players like Redden and Roszival swayed the momentum, to terrible. I'm inclined to believe putting them on the same pair is better - that way we have 1 shitty pair and 2 good pairs, rather than someone shitty on the ice for 2/3 of the time.
On the other hand, these shots weren't just one-and-dones from the point, there was a lot of sustained pressure a lot of the time.
On the other hand, there were 5-minute stretches where it WAS all one-and-dones and nothing interesting happened.
On the other hand....et cetera.
Basically, there are a lot of positive takeaways from this game, but not enough to convince me that we're solid. We are slowly improving. And if we're not gonna pick up 2, at least no one else did either on Saturday. 4 bubble teams picked up 1 each, the other 2 (us and Montréal) didn't get any. Rangers squeak by, losing in regulation to a better team with a decent-but-not-great effort. Next stop: Sunday.
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