By my count, it had been 254 days since the New York Rangers had won a hockey game, and after the first two games of the season, it felt even longer. Sigh of relief cut somewhat short, the Blueshirts are right back in action tonight, against the Flyers. Herein lie some things that I feel like I need to say about Arron Asham, followed by some other scattered thoughts on the three games that led to the Rangers' 1-2 start so far.
Arron Asham will be out again tonight, due to the same groin injury that kept him out last night. And that is awesome. Asham is a big dumb douchebag, which is a position I do not have to justify here. But let's talk about the only thing he's done for us so far: his home-opening-faceoff choreographed fight with Tanner "I'd make a pun about his last name and 'Glass Jaw' except that he kicked Asham's ass in the fight" Glass.
First of all, this fight was orchestrated by Penguins head coach and noted hat-wearer Dan Bylsma, who chose to start the game by putting out his second line - and then replacing his right wing with Tanner Glass for some reason. (Take notes, Bob Smizik: the home team gets to pick its lineup after the away team.) John Tortorella (he of the much less classy neckties) followed suit and replaced his scoring line's winger with Arron "seriously, this guy is the worst" Asham, and so the Rangers' home opener started with a meaningless fight.
The lockout made me wait 4 extra goddamn months to watch hockey in Madison Square Garden, and then Arron Asham made me wait yet another 5 minutes.
Here's the thing: there was absolutely nothing on the line in this fight, other than Asham's and Glass's jobs. This was stupid. Blame was placed, sort of?, at least by the coach a little, on the Rangers not pulling the requisite spark from the fight, but that is a stupid idea.
You don't magically rally around a dude getting his face punched, whether he's Brandon Prust or Arron Asham. Prust's fights rallied the team because they happened when they fucking mattered at all. I think Scotty Hockey put it best: some good times to fight in an NHL game might be when you go down by 2 late in the first period on your home opener, or when your team comes out flat in the second regardless, or when deep in garbage time your skill rookie gets flattened at the blue line and doesn't get back up. Those are good examples of when you might want to fight in an NHL game, all of which fucking happened that night. Instead, Asham got his face punched by Tanner Glass for a minute or two before the hockey game started, and -- go figure! -- it didn't have much effect on the game!
Also: in losing Asham last night, we moved Bickel up to forward, and brought Eminger back in on defense. That means that the only things that changed were our fourth line and our bottom two D-pairs. I want to be explicit here. We went from:
Rupp - Halpern - Asham
Staal / Stralman
Bickel / Del Zotto
to:
Rupp - Halpern - Bickel
Staal / Del Zotto
Eminger / Stralman
Look at those two lineups. The one without Asham is just plain better! We keep Bickel in the lineup to be big for 4 minutes a game, and our defensive pairs get way more reliable (not in the least by moving Del Zotto up to where Staal can cover for him). Everything looks better without this guy!
So, here's to you, Arron Asham's groin. May you stay minorly injured for the next 17 months or so.
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In non-groin-related news, how excited am I about Rick Nash? Long-time regulars to this space (a chiefly fictional entity) will recall that I have been crushing on Nash for years. Along with a small handful of others (Dustin Byfuglien, Brooks Orpik), he's a guy I've dreamed of seeing in Broadway Blue for a long-ass time. But, like, for some reason, my dream came true on this one, and holy sweet Goddamn, he is so good at hockey, especially when he's on a real team. If this were a 3-game season, he'd undoubtedly be team MVP (and it would be a very disappointing season). Defensively responsible, strong on the puck... seriously, everything you want in a forward. Actually, the more I think about him, the more this news might be groin-related after all.
That was an erection joke.
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After a win in which Gaborik, Richards, Stepan, Callahan, and Nash averaged 21:28 of ice time each, and no other forward touched 15:30, Coach Tortorella doubled down on his one-line-to-rule-them-all strategy, explaining: "Quite honestly, I'm not comfortable playing a four-line rotation. I don't think guys have played well enough for me to play a four-line rotation comfortably, because we need to win."
And the worst part is: he's right. Hell, I'm not even comfortable rolling three. Beyond the big three marquee names (who have at least pulled their weight and at most been Rick Nash), there hasn't been much from anyone. We all expected Kreider's play to take a significant dive (or, if you didn't, you damn well should have). But all the other second-and-third-liners really need to step up. I understand that Dubinsky and Anisimov are gone (for good reason), and Prust and Fedotenko are gone (possibly for less good reason), but this team still has Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle, Carl Hagelin, and Derek Stepan, all of whom need to get rolling.
But there's reason to believe they will. This season started after 5 days of camp with no pre-season. The style the Rangers play -- gritty, in-your-face, shot-blocking, defensive -- takes a longer time to get rolling. That's why we've seen so many scores like 5 and 6 already. As the season starts to settle in, expect overall scores to drop some - and with that, expect the Rangers' defense and middle-liners to get back into their groove. And, by the way, that will include Taylor Pyatt, whom you should start preparing to like, if you don't already. Remember that.
Frankly, it can't come soon enough, otherwise, under Torts, those top three guys are gonna get real tired.
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