Attending a game like Saturday's was the perfect way to make me hate hockey. Fine, this is established. But if you asked me for my ideal regular season hockey game, if you wanted me to write down a description of the ideal game to get me excited about hockey, last night would more or less have been exactly it.
If you are a Ranger fan, and you did not see this game, then I'm sorry. The Rangers played a solid, end-to-end game from the start and didn't let up until the very end of the second and beginning of the third, when it was already 3-0. Even so, by about 5 minutes into the third, we were back in it, and we gave up no odd-man rushes or goals in that time.
Everyone was excellent, but particularly standing out were Sjostrom and Betts, who played out of their heads on both ends of the ice, Callahan and Dubinsky, whose offensive efforts are consistently exactly what I want to see, and of course Avery, who was always exactly where no Devil wanted him to be. Also, the longer we let Girardi play with Staal, the better he gets - he looked fan-goddamn-tastic last night.
As for the Avery-Brodeur mini-drama, Avery stood in Brodeur's crease a lot, Brodeur slashed and hooked him sometimes, and it got called never. The end. At the end of the day, Avery did his job, and Brodeur didn't. Avery drew Clarkson into a game misconduct and took the attention off of all his scorers while getting some great chances of his own (and ended up with 1 assist). Brodeur let 3 past him in 10:31. Avery wins. Again.
Goddamn it what a solid game. Lundqvist looked amazing, by the way. I loved the Vs. announcers, talking about him like his shutout wasn't as good as Prince Marty's performance in giving up 3. They used lines like "it wasn't much, but he made the big saves when he had to." That's what you say when a goalie wins a shootout after facing 18 shots. You know, like Brodeur always does. Last night, Lundqvist made 38 saves to earn that shutout. That's not "big saves when he had to," it's a really great performance. And a couple, as always, were robberies. Oh man, the sounds of the Garden last night healed me. When the chants of "Maaaaaartyyyyy...Maaaaaaartyyyyy" gave way to an excited "Hen-rik! Henrik!" as the seconds ticked down on the King's 3rd shutout of the season, I knew I could love hockey again.
Rangers in February: 3-6-4
Rangers in March: 8-4-1
Bring on the 'Canes, Bruins, Habs, and Flyers! Let's Go Rangers!
No comments:
Post a Comment