Friday, November 23, 2007

Thanksgiving Hangover


The New York Rangers (13-8-2) were defeated tonight by the Florida Panthers (11-12-1) by a score of 3-2 in a shootout. Olli Jokinen's fifth round goal against Stephen Valiquette was the game winner and the only goal during the shootout. The two Ranger goals in regulation were scored by Chris Drury. The loss ended the Rangers five game road unbeaten streak. For a full recap go to ESPN.com.

...if you thought I was disgusted with the Ranger offense after their win Wednesday night, you can only imagine how po'd I am right now.

...first some positives: I guess it's safe to say Valiquette is more than a capable backup at this point. He is the only reason we even got a point tonight. He was outstanding. The back-to-back glove saves he made during the shootout were sic. The other positive was Drury. Not just his two goals, but his overall game tonight was great. Too bad he couldn't cap it by scoring to tie up the shootout. I thought this guy was clutch? Just kidding Chris, nice game tonight.

...now to the negatives: let's see where should I begin. Oh yeah, the power play. I think at this point we should just decline power play opportunities. If it wasn't for Valiquette the Panthers would have had two short handed goals including a 3 on 5. I know we eventually scored on that two man advantage, but wow are we struggling to get anything going on the power play. I'm out of solutions at this point.

...five rounds in the shootout and we can't score. We weren't even close.

...I'm sorry to pick on the guy on the same day the New York press does. But, what is up with Jagr? It seems as though he's trying to be a play maker instead of a goal scorer. I do have to give him credit for two outstanding, hard working shifts tonight, but he also took way too many shifts off. If anyone saw Straka's interview between the 1st and 2nd period you could tell he was frustrated with Jagr not shooting when Micholetti asked him about it.

...again, I'll take points anyway I can get them, especially with the Flyers (in OT) and Islanders losing tonight, but that is a game the Rangers have to win especially with the goaltending they got from Valiquette.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Tough loss for Vali. Great game by Drury. Too bad no one else showed up.

fleisch said...

The answer to the powerplay is get the "big names" off the ice. Lets see if the yonuger guys have anything better to offer. Get dubinsky. prucha, callahan (when healthy) avery on the ice and even park Holweg and bettes in front of the net and have rozival and staal rip from the points... What happened to Prucha on the powerplay? Didnt he have like 20 goals 2 years ago on the powerplay. Maybe the coaches should look at some game tape from then and see what was working.

Anonymous said...

I hate this team