Friday, January 18, 2008

Mara's Play Earns Praise

John Dellapina at the Daily News has a nice story on Paul Mara's strong play of late...

"...Mara has seven assists in his last 10 games, during which his ice time has been hiked to 18-1/2 minutes per game - approximately 1:30 more than he was averaging for the season. The difference has been Mara's inclusion on the power play. Mara's previous exclusion was mysterious because the 28-year-old has a record of success and the Rangers have been searching for competent point men since Brian Leetch was traded four years ago.

'I think I've gotten a little more power play time and I've been shooting the puck a lot more and gaining confidence every day,' said Mara, whose even-strength slapper was redirected home for the deciding goal by Petr Prucha in Wednesday night's victory over Buffalo. 'So things are getting better lately.'..."

...Mara has an absolute cannon and its been on display of late. The only problem is his shot is usually wide or blocked. Once he starts getting his shot on net, his offensive numbers will be even better.

...a have to agree with Dellapina that it has been a mystery why Renney has left Mara off the power play. Although with Renney's history of incorrectly using personnel on the power play (see Matt Cullen and Chris Drury) I'm not too surprised.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Im not sure who gets the blame for the power play.. Renney or Perry Pern who is charge of power play and penalty kill. As I said before, Mara has been playing well, and nice to see him shooting with confidence

bpette02 said...

Hey Fleisch 14 stop kissing Renney's ass. He is the head coach and he's responsible for not getting the most out of his players.