Tuesday, March 11, 2008

Lucky 13


The New York Rangers (37-24-9) defeated the Buffalo Sabres (32-28-10) by a score of 3-2 in a shootout giving them points in 13 straight games. Scott Gomez scored the decisive shootout goal in a 3-2 win over the slumping Buffalo Sabres on Monday night, in helping the Rangers improve to 10-0-3 in their past 13 games, and move into a tie with Ottawa for fifth-place in the East. Jaromir Jagr and Fedor Tyutin scored in regulation for the Rangers, who are getting solid goaltending, timely goals and winning on consecutive nights while closing to within three points of East-leading New Jersey. The Rangers have come a long way getting off to an inconsistent first three months. Since enduring a 2-6-2 skid, New York has gone 15-3-3 in its past 21 games. Henrik Lundqvist stopped 19 shots, including foiling Maxim Afinogenov on a breakaway in the final minute of overtime, to improve to 8-0-2 in his past 11 appearances. For a full recap go to Yahoo! Sports.

...despite some undisciplined play and another night of horrific officiating (how did Sjostrom get called for goalie interference?) the Rangers pulled out another shootout victory. The Rangers have now participated in a shootout in four of the last five games, winning three of them.

...the Rangers have started the month of March with a 4-0-1 record.

...great to see Jagr get on the scoreboard last night. During this winning streak, despite not scoring, Jagr has really stepped up his efforts to cut down on the lazy hooking penalties and doing the little things that Captain's have to do to make their team successful. I've been real happy with Jagr's performance over the last month.

...third game in a row where Lundqvist has made the big saves. The breakaway save he made on Afinogenov won them the game. As well as the saves he made on the big 5 on 3 kill in the second period.

...I have to give Sather some props for his deadline deals. Sjostrom has added some legitimate offense to the fourth line. They actually possessed the puck in the offensive zone last night which resulted in a real offensive threat. And Backman looks like he's settled down a bit and actually had a solid game against Buffalo. Plus with Malik being hurt, Backman gives the Rangers some nice depth at the position.

...three days off till back-to-back games with Tampa and Florida.

2 comments:

oh baby said...

I totally agree with you on Jagr, he has really picked up his play over the past few weeks. It seems as though he now believes in this team, which is all he neeeded to do to pull him out of his mental funk.
Speaking of mental funks, big props to Lundquist as well. He has been stealing some points for us over the last couple of games. While the Rangers have really battled and are piling up the points, I think they have been starting out a little flat and Lundquist has been keeping them in it.

bpette02 said...

I agree Jagr deserves credit, and the old Hank is back. Although Backman was better last night he still sucks. He had a good 2nd period, but was terrible the rest of the game. I can't wait for Mara to get back, seriously.

The officiating was bad last night, that play with Peters at the end of the game was a joke.