Thursday, April 23, 2009

Rangers 2, Capitals 1

How's that for an answer to the "How will Drury hold up?" question? What if he holds up for the game-winning goal? Does that count? Man, what a pretty move it was, too - for a guy with only one hand, he sure found that angle. Chris Drury's 17th career Stanley Cup playoff game-winning goal (tying him for 6th ever in that category). And he played a solid defensive game, too! I'll take it, Captain.

So, the first period of this game was the best we've played of our 12 so far. We took the game to them, all period. We looked a step ahead, when we got the puck we kept it, etc. See what happens when you keep putting pucks on net? They bounce around and sometimes go in!

Then we kinda sat back. After outshooting them 11-9 in the first, they outshot us 30-10 over the final two. Welcome to The New York Rangers Present An Evening With Henrik Lundqvist. Letting in only one, a beautiful effort by the finally-on-the-board-but-still-frustrated-as-hell best player in the world, the King stood as tall as we needed him to despite a 40-minute barrage from the second-best offensive team in the East (and third in the league). This included a full 8 minutes of penalty time against the best PP in the East (and second in the league).

And I don't even really feel like we left him hung out to dry that often. Rozsival is actually playing good hockey. Staal realized he was actually a good defenseman and remembered to stop being afraid of the playoffs and do what he did all season. By the second half of the game, Girardi had followed suit. They both had easily their best game of the playoffs. They reminded me they were our best D-pair last night, and they had been blending in all series. Even Redden had a good game. In fact, I would almost even consider Redden/Rozsival our #2 pair, if all 6played every game like they did last night. It was...a good defensive corps.

Of course, if we're going to talk about the PK and defense, we have to mention some forwards. Their names, as usual, are Betts and Sjostrom, and also Antropov. These guys were everywhere they needed to be. I love their forechecking mentality, and more than anything not named Hank, it's this kind of play that has gotten us where we are right now.

We blocked 16 shots, compared to the Caps' 7, and it felt like we were back in the mentality of Games 1 and 2 - get in the way, sacrifice everything. I felt like we played hard, even throughout periods 2 and 3, when we let a bazrillion shots get to the King. The one place we significantly improved, and I think this was very telling, is faceoffs. After losing out on these in all 3 games, desperately badly in Game 1, we won an astonishing 39 of 58 last night, led by Dubinsky, who played like a man (or two) possessed, losing only 2 of his 17 faceoffs, one to Backstrom and one to David Steckel.

Speaking of Dubinsky, I can't say enough about him. What a winner. He is doing absolutely everything right. I want to keep him. I want him to captain the Rangers of the future. And while we're on the subject, Callahan. No matter where they were, these two were playing with an extra step, an extra hustle, and an extra hit. When a Cap had the puck, they were on him, on the boards, squeezing it out. PP, PK, even strength, offensive zone, defensive zone, neutral ice, whatever. These two should be Rangers their whole careers, please. Dubinsky, Callahan, Staal, and Lundqvist. This is my new definition of a Ranger. I'm happy with it.

And I need to talk a little about the penalty situation, because it needs to be discussed. Yes, we have the best PK in the league. No doubt. But it is unacceptable nonetheless to be shorthanded as much as we are shorthanded. Through 4 games, we have suffered 24 minor penalties for 40:59 of shorthanded time. That's over 2 full periods of penalty kill in 4 games.

Now, we know the officials have not been particularly...reasonable all the time. Last night, that came down pretty strongly in favor of the Caps, as the stripes called a phantom holding on Rozsival mere minutes from ignoring multiple crosschecks to Dubinsky's backside. But it's gonna happen like that. Especially in a series we're threatening to take a commanding lead in, when everyone wanted this to be a marquee match. The league scoring leader skates into Broadway? Ratings police say: this has to go more than 4 or 5 games. We'd be getting the same special treatment if we were about to go down 3 games to 1. And honestly, I'd rather be up by a few and getting dogged than the other way around.

We just need to compensate for it. Granted, there were phantom calls, but there we also unnecessary ones. Particularly, Naslund has had some real issues not taking stupid penalties. I remember Rozsival's inexcusable hook in game 2. And yes, let's talk about the Page Six elephant in the room. There is no doubt that everyone in the league is allowed to do whatever they want to Avery and never get called for it. And there is no doubt that whenever two people collide, if one of them is Sean Avery, he goes to the box. But Avery's mentality absolutely cannot be "if you're gonna do the time, at least do the crime."

As much as I have faith in him that the collision for the icing with 10 minutes left was incidental contact, and that officials Paul Devorsky and Ian Walsh have been drinking the "Avery is a criminal" Kool-Aid, the response absolutely cannot be to stick a guy in the head with 3 minutes to go. Note, those who would call Avery dirty for this move: it still did not intend to injure anybody. Believe me, if you swing your hockey stick at somebody's head and make direct contact with intent to injure, he doesn't just skate away annoyed. As with everything else Avery does, he was trying to fuck with, in this case, Brian Pothier. It's an important distinction from people like Jarkko Ruutu. However, the move is still completely inexcusable.

First of all, you are up by 1 goal, 3 minutes away from your team taking a 3-1 series lead. The play has already stopped. How dare you put the Rangers in jeopardy like that? What is it going to accomplish? Second of all, and this is the factor no one else is talking about, the more you keep your nose clean, while they keep calling more and more embarrassingly nonexistent penalties against you, the harder it is for the league to keep looking like it's in the right. But one clip like that high-sticking can be played on Vs. and on NBC and on TSN over and over and over again, and as long as you keep giving them material like that, you will keep being painted as the bad guy, and you will keep getting called every time you breathe near someone.

In conclusion, everyone stay out of the goddamn box tomorrow night!

But, as you know, this particular sub-story has a happy ending. The Rangers and their King killed off all of the penalties and everything else the Caps threw at them. It is hard to imagine a better playoff performance from a goalie. Well, at least, it's hard to imagine one that doesn't involve a temper-tantrum so bad your seven-year-old daughter chastises you for it when you get home. We kept saying he was going to need to be spectacular, and guess what? He was spectacular. Rangers lead, 3-1. And I have tickets to Game 5.

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