Isles Sink Rangers in "Short" Order

KEY RANGERS:

Lundqvist: His sharpness wasted by the Rangers awful effort on the PP
The Fourth Line: 0-0-0 but solid performance nonetheless

Michal Rozsival: Earned $60,975.61 setting up two Islanders goals.


FIRST PERIOD:
The Rangers brought their lunch pails early getting pucks deep and going to work. The game was a bit sleepy early on but slowly the Rangers' attack got going. Hustle and hard work earned them their chances but unfortunately they weren't able to cash in on any of them.

A LITTLE SIDENOTE:
The fourth line has been one of the Rangers' best lately. Good for them, but that probably also means we should all be afraid, very, very afraid. No, honestly, they've been great at even strength and Betts and Sjostrom have been outstanding on the kill.

[Via Yahoo!]

SECOND PERIOD:
The good guys seemed to have the puck almost the entire period. They launched shot after shot toward Joey MacDonald but were denied each time.

In total he stopped 18 Rangers attempts -- probably another eight or ten were fired wide -- none better than the head-high glove save he made on Michal Rozsival's blast.

But this is still a guy with 17 NHL games of experience to his credit before this season being made to look like the second coming of Patrick Roy uhh.. well, at least Patrick Lalime circa 2002-03. [I knew there was some type of Patrick involved.]

[PL: Not gonna lie, don't really appreciate your snide little comment.]
[Via BBC]

Even with his clutch performance, the Rangers had this team on the ropes -- one that played and went to overtime the night before -- and should have stuck the dagger in sometime during the frame.

Instead, they failed on their second power play opportunity and left the door wide open for some sort of nauseating conclusion. I'm just waiting at this point for the odd carom or awful turnover that gift-wraps this game for the visitors.

THIRD PERIOD:

It didn't take long for the nauseating moment. The Rangers earn an early man advantage but clearly should have declined.

[No, thanks.]

The Pepto Bismol Nausea, Heartburn, Indigestion, Upset Stomach, Diarrhea Player of the Game goes to Michal Rozsival manning the point on the power play.

He gets beat along the outside by Nate Thompson, a former sixth-rounder no one's heard of, who ends up making a terrific play to bat the puck out of the air and into the net after the initial bid.

On the next power play Rozsival -- already demoted to the 2nd unit for his earlier misadventure -- tries to force a pass back to Mara at the other point that's picked off by Richard Park.

Those, kids, are the league-leading 4th and 5th shorties given up by the Rangers.

Rozsival looks like the scapegoat here-- which he kind of is as that pass was all sorts of awful -- but the real bad guy here is the atrocious Rangers powerplay, now 29th in the NHL.

[Rozsival is making at least $500 bucks just skating away dejectedly]

If it could have scored Saturday, the Rangers likely coast to a 3-0 win over the Leafs instead of being embarassed in the third. 

If it could have come through for just one goal here tonight, the Islanders' collective will could have been broken. Instead the Rangers are exposed for what they are -- a flawed team -- and they throw away another two points that should've been in the bag.

The power play is stagnant and predictable. Forwards are flying out to pressure the points -- knowing the Ranger point men are gun-shy -- and they're forcing the Rangers to cough it up.

If someone had the ability to back off those forwards with a heavy point shot and great passing ability when the lane isn't there -- Wade Redden, are you still alive? We miss you at Rangers games -- the power play could be a lot more effective.  

As it stands I'm going to keep using this picture until it no longer applies to how I feel after Rangers games:

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Uhh.. Can We Have a Do-Over?

Penalties aside, early on the boys were playing the kind of game we'd want to see:

No turnovers, little to no carelessness with the puck and a fair amount of hard work. They weren't dominating offensively as a handful of penalties kept them from really generating on that end, but they led 1-0 after one nonetheless.

[Ryan Callahan's wrister finds the back of the Toronto net via Toronto Sun]

Then they played the kind of game we expect to see:

They were sloppy with the puck and started getting hemmed in a bit. A shift by the fourth line helped right the ship, though.

Ranger beat writers probably had 75% of their stories written before the Leafs took some liberties with the game's plot line.

Accolades were likely already typed up for the fourth line that started sluggishly -- Sjostrom taking a penalty in the first -- but recovered, putting in hard-working shift after hard-working shift. 

The trio, which won all sorts of battles and races for loose pucks, eventually broke through when Blair Betts scored the Blueshirts' second goal.

More praise for Steven Valiquette's stellar understudy job was probably scrawled on notepads and hammered out on computer keys. 

He had stopped twenty-nine shots and looked destined for another big win -- not to mention shutout -- in his own backyard.

The game looked securely in control for your heroes. This game might even have been a model to point to on how to get certain things done Tom Renney's way.

Then the re-write began.

The Leafs suddenly got to all the loose pucks. They started beating Valiquette like the Shooter-Tutor of their youth. They fired seven shots on goal in a span of 5:21, five of which beat Valley. 

Five. Goals. In. Five. Minutes.  Ugh.



Valiquette could have should have had at least two of the shots -- Jason Blake's low deflection and probably the first Mitchell tally. But he stopped almost nothing in that frantic five minutes and the Rangers had two standings points yoinked right out of their pockets.

I'm not even sure how to explain how this one went down, but I do know this:

The Rangers are going to lose games.  They're going to blow leads.  They're also going to learn lessons if they intend to go anywhere this year and into this spring.  

That's what they have to do.  Learn something from this five-minute-long mistake and go back to winning hockey games with sound, defensive play.

Let's see what kind of houseguests the Islanders make for on Tuesday.

 

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Zherdev's Zesty Backhander Zings Thrashers

Another game, another fairly sluggish start and more of the lax puck management that caused them problems in the first period on Long Island.

They let the Thrashers jump out to a 1-0 lead before Markus Naslund zipped a wrister past Kari Lehtonen at 12:35. 

So, they continued the recent trend of a sleepy open followed by an awakening team doing enough to snuff out a lesser one.  Even so, there are some big positives to pull from the game.

Naslund was again a factor--for the fifth game in a row--as he was able to create in the offensive end for himself and for Chris Drury.

Most impressive of all, however, was the artistry of of Nik Zherdev.  

The kid played extremely well defensively.  His full-on sprint and dive to deny Slava Kozlov a breakaway was simply beautiful and he also swiped the puck before roofing a nasty backhander to tie the game at two.  His speed and skill helped create Dan Girardi's game-winner as well.  

Is there anyone out there still not convinced about the trade that brought Zherdev to Broadway?  I think even Fedor Tyutin would say the Rangers got a steal.  Awesome.

[Via ESPN]

KEY RANGERS:
Nikolai Zherdev 1-1-2 | +2 Filthy is the only word that comes to mind
Dan Girardi 1-0-1 | +1 20:58 TOI; 2 hits

Markus Naslund 1-0-1 | +1

Partially because I don't have a lot more to offer up on this game and partially because he reeks of greatness, another video clip of Nik Zherdev doing this thing:

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