You know it's a good night when you keep the best player in hockey off the scoreboard. You know it's a better one, one that screams "this season's Rangers," when you score 4 of your own goals (a feat we accomplished only once in scoring only 11 in a seven-game series against this team last spring), and when 2 of them come in a 2:33 span from the guy you're paying to score goals.
Oh, and the penalty kill wasn't bad either. In a 60-minute game that saw 14 2-minute penalties assigned (9 of them, including 6 in a row, to the Blueshirts), the Rangers gave up only one shorthanded goal in 13:19 of shorthanded ice time, including 1:33 of 5-on-3. Blair Betts, out with a 4-week-minimum shoulder injury after his third game for Philly, was unavailable for comment.
Yes, this was a game that would have seemed completely out of reach to look at the Rangers only a summer ago: without any of Betts, Fredrik Sjostrom, or Paul Mara, our PK was simply astonishing. Meanwhile, we managed to battle back from deficits twice, including one that came from - gasp! - a bad mistake by Lundqvist, and win the game in regulation time by scoring more goals than our opponents. We forechecked, we passed East-West instead of North-South, and we battled for pucks along the boards. All game, consistently. We didn't win this game by getting lucky, having King Hank, and surviving, like we did in the playoffs so recently - we won it by battling hard and shooting the puck.
Who are these guys??
Chris Drury (yes, Chris Drury) played a fantastic game of hockey, sacrificing his body to make plays and putting himself in the right place all the time. Last night, I saw the Drury I've been hoping for since he made us look silly in Buffalo back in the 2007 playoffs. Quite sure we would have given up at least one on our first 5-on-3 without his heroics.
Ryan Callahan, playing "injured" (?), was another hero. Killing a 4-on-3, he made a beautiful move to strip the puck and come down with it, but the defender got there and stopped him, so, exhausted, he went back to kill more penalty and made the same move again, scoring this time, to tie the game at 1. It was a thing of beauty. He continued to dominate all night.
In fact, that whole line was great. I have been loving everything I've seen Chris Higgins do as well. He and Prospal are my most pleasant surprises right now: I'm happy every time either of them has the puck. Dubinsky needs to start making a few smarter decisions, but I'm confident he will, and meanwhile, he keeps hitting people, a lot. Like, almost to a fault. So, that's awesome. Obviously, Gaborik did his job - no questions there. The third line? Well, besides the obvious Kotalik's goal, Anisimov, finally started to bloom a little - I've been thoroughly underwhelmed by him so far, and last night I finally started to see a good hockey player in there. So that's nice.
Torts can NOT be happy with his fourth line: we took a number of dumb penalties throughout the game, starting with our opener, Dubi's punching minor. But when your fourth line takes two dumbass minors in the third - one in a tie game, and one up by a goal with 5 minutes left - you can't be happy. Brashear, seriously, every time you make 3 good passes and I try to not hate you, you make me hate you somehow. Stop it.
Speaking of Torts not being happy, you may have noticed an abominable little defensemen wearing #33 from the bench throughout the entire third. I am exceedingly excited about this. Maybe he will finally learn that if he keeps playing shitty hockey, he might not be allowed to play hockey so much anymore. Granted, this would hold more weight if we had more than six defensemen...but still. I liked it.
Other than Rozsie, our defense played a solid game (yes, even Wade Redden). Hell, we had to, to kill all those penalties. It turns out Torts was right: regardless of how "defensively-minded" you want your club to be, it's very hard for the other team to score when they don't have the puck (though not impossible, Backstrom).
I'm out of stuff to talk about, this game was just so fucking great. This is how you fight back for a victory against a tough team - this is exactly how I want my club playing. The Good Ship Tortorella sails on! Holy shit I'm happy about hockey!
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