Rangers Shut Out By Canes, 3-0
Monday, March 9, 2009
After spending the weekend doing radio work for the Quinnipiac Bobcats, I thought I would settle in my "Archie Bunker Chair" and enjoy the New York Rangers vs. the Carolina Hurricanes. I was hoping for a good night for the Rangers and getting to sit back and enjoy the game. Ugh! Is all I can say. Boy, was that a clunker of a game for the Rangers tonight. No offense what so ever. There was not one player that I can think of, other than Valiquette, that you can honestly say showed up tonight.
Cam Ward turned back all 27 shots the Rangers fired on him, but really how many were serious scoring shots? 2, maybe 3? And even that's a reach. The Canes struck first when defenseman Joe Corvo beat Brandon Dubinsky and Nikolai Zherdev up the ice and poked in a puck past Valiquette (who made a great initial save). Sorry, you can get away with that early in the season - but not now. Every game has playoff implications and really there's no time left in the season to make it up. After that, Carolina connected on it's 4th PP attempt on a blast by Rod Brind'Amour. That goal, for all intents and purposes, sealed the deal as the Rangers could not find any sustained offense for Cam Ward to worry about!
Other observations in the game for me was Sean Avery is trying just a little too hard to impress and it cost the Blueshirts on PP and negated another. I am a big fan of Avery's, but tonight was not one of his best efforts (He had lots of company). Oh well, as one of my followers of my blog (Mr. Hockey) once wrote, "No score goalie, no win gamie". How true is that? Now the Rangers head off to Nashville. The team will need a huge effort to win that game, the Predators are no slouch! Over and out!
Quinnipiac Bobcats Advance in the Playoffs
The Quinnipiac Bobcats played 3 sudden death OT games over the weekend against the Colgate Raiders. Brandon Wong finished Colgate off with his 2nd OT winner in 3 nights as the Bobcats advanced to the 2nd round of the ECAC playoffs. In the next round, the Bobcats will be facing St. Lawrence University. It was a great series to watch this past weekend. Colgate and Quinnipiac put on quite an exciting 3 nights of hockey. Goaltender Bud Fisher was fantastic in the final game and that's just what you need in the playoffs - solid goaltending. It should be a good match-up between Quinnipiac and St. Lawrence as the teams both won at each other's home rink this regular season. Unfortunately, I won't be available to work the radio broadcast, but I will be listening! Go Bobcats!
8 comments:
You don't stand a chance if you do not score. The Rangers went to Carolina for the opportunity to win 2 points. They did not. The team had problems finding the net. The Canes blocked many many shots from the points and face off circles. 28 shots on goal these days by the Tortarella Rangers suggests the opponents played superior defense. The Canes did just that. What the Rangers were forced to do by Carolina was to try to generate chances from behind the goal and along the walls. The Rangers were ok with that part. But they failed in getting the rest of the players to the front of the goal. This game needed a lot of slot pinching by the defense. They did not do it enough. Stall was the only defensemen who drove the slot. Michael Roszival needs to go. He is the worst passer in the history of the Ny Rangers in my opinion. Roszival's inability to process information on the fly is down right criminal. The amount of time it takes him to make a move is amateur in caliber. It must be fixed. He plays too much.
Kotsy,
Nice blog! Keep up the good work.
Jack
JohnM: I have to agree with you on Rosival, just another pure underachiever who gets payed a ton of money.
The offense was ... well just offensive in a bad way. Canes goaltender Cam Ward really had few difficult shots to handle.
Unfortunately for the Rangers games are dwindling down. Every game has Playoff implications written all over it and last night was a dud.
Being aggressive is good as long as you don't forget your end of the ice.
A good example was The Canes first goal. Corvo beat Dubinsky and Zherdev back in to the defensive zone and he's a D-man. That's Unacceptable.
Jack McDonald: Thank you for the kind words. It's a lot of fun.
Lets hope the "Bobcats" continue their winning ways next week at St.Lawrence.
It was a pathetic game last night. The Rangers just looked slower and tired. Carolina looked like they had rockets on their skates going by, pretty much all of our d-men.
They need to rebound against Nashville, because right now we still hold our own destiny (more points than buffalo and a game at hand & 1 pt behind Carolina). We gotta take one game at a time, try not to look at the home and home against Philly just yet.
Wrath of Sanity: Your
observations of the speed of Carolina and the Rangers D-men getting torched are spot on.
They could have used a little help from the forwards on the back check. (Especially on Corvo's goal)
Where was the offense? No serious scoring threats in my estimation. One shot and done, rebounds what rebounds?
I agree 100% you can't look ahead. Take care of your own business and take it one game at a time.
I think Avery played better than he did on Sunday against the Bruins. Of course he took those two penalties that negated two Rangers PPs, but he looked more comfortable. The first penalty he took was awful. But the second one on Corvo I think was based more on reputation. I honestly do think he was trying to trip him up, but if it's another player besides Avery I'm not so sure it gets called.
Your blog is great btw. It's invaluable to get perspective from a Pro. Keep it going.
Ryan McFadden: I appreciate the nice words. I am a huge Avery fan, he just needs to settle down in to his comfort level.
Avery's style of play was sorely missed this season. His reputation is going to follow him around but I hope he never changes his on ice rep.
If the NHL doesn't like it, too bad!
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