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.