Rick Carpiniello at the Rangers Report has these quotes among others...
Henrik Lundqvist...
“They made good moves, but going into the shootout, I was pretty beat up. It was a tough, intense game. It was pretty tight. I was focused, but they made two pretty good moves. They waited and waited and I tried to be patient. But not much to say. The season’s over and it sucks.”
Brandon Dubinsky...
“I don’t know. I don’t know. I can’t put a finger on it. I think that we’ve been in the must-win situation for a while now, and I think we should have approached it the same way as we did every one of those games. But in the end this is Game 7. Nobody wants to make that mistake. People are a little bit tentative. I think that could have been one of the reasons for them having so many chances and shots against us."
Asked to explain his decision to not use Gaborik in the shootout John Tortorella said...
"No"
...i'm sorry that pisses me off. Torts owes it to the fans who've lived and died with this team all year to explain why he decided to leave the Rangers best offensive player on the bench with the season on the line. Disgraceful.
For more quotes go to Ranger Rants and Blue Notes.
11 comments:
Damn straight he owes us an explanation. What does he not want to tip his hand for the playoffs? Is he afraid other coaches will steal his moves? gimme a break.
granted the game is over now but a few key calls in that game could easily change the outcome. ATLEAST 5-7 high sticks (a few which could have resulted in double-minors) plus that cheap shot pronger gave to shelley. granted we didnt play anywhere close to our best hockey yesterday, but still any kind of momentum swing might have helped.
I here you Ryan, but the Rangers did not deserve to win that game. Without Lundqvist the score is 6-1.
The torts and sather clock of begun ticking now
lundqvist was lights out. embarrassing how poorly the forwards played in front of him. the puck was barely in the flyers zone, and you know you've got issues when a line bookended by Brandon Prust and Jody Shelley is your best. Weird choice for the SO, although Gaborik maybe was successful on one of his chances this year. Would have liked to see the Captain shoulder burden. that was weak.
oikenin was 5-9 on the season in the shootout...gaborik is like 2-20 in his career....
lets not make this all about that decision....their are a million other reasons to blame this awful season on the coach.....thats not one of them...
Gaborik is terrible at shoot outs and Torts didnt want to be an asshole and say that.
If he did put Gab out there and he missed everyone would question why they used him.
Torts Is a great coach with shitty unresponsive players.
i dont see how relying on jokinen, who has come over here for 20 games and wont be with us next season (heres hoping)over gabby, who is signed here and has carried this teams offense all season.
think about it, gabby must be thinking "wow torts put out a player who has been here for 20 games and likely wont be here next season to save our season"
id be pretty pissed
I don't care what the numbers say, did anyone feel confident when they saw Jokinen skate out there for the final shot? Exactly. And not one person would have questioned using Gaborik, I don't care how bad his numbers were.
Having said all that, if the Rangers just won two more games during their November to March malaise yesterday wouldn't have meant a thing.
I have to disagree. I'd have said no to Gaborik, because he can't score a shootout goal on an empty net.
Captain Clutch, though, would have been a choice. Hell, Anisimov has had some good looking chances.
Managers make decisions based on numbers and past success. That's sports. Would a baseball manager start a guy who bats .097 against lefties when their team is facing a left-handed pitcher? It happens all the time. You give the player who has succeeded in that position previously the chance.
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