How many of us predicted through 18 games that Dubinsky would have 17 points, Callahan would have 16, and Anisimov would have 14? How many thought that Boogaard would get his 1st goal before Gaborik? How many thought Brian Boyle would play good hockey and also have 8 goals (even though he has no assists)? How about Frolov not producing and becoming Higgins 2.0? Although he's playing a bit better now.

The new season brings life to every team, everyone can make decent predictions, but there is no way anyone would have predicted this. This Rangers team seems like they actually have hope, fighting through adversity with no Gabby for a few weeks, no Drury for probably 2 months, and no Prospal for probably 3 months. When this Rangers team has faced adversity with injuries, players stepped up. When Gabby and Drury went down, the Battery line took over for a few games, and although it was more of a hot streak, they have still played great, especially Dubi and Cally. Now Rozy is hurt for about 2 weeks, and who would have thought that Eminger, who has been bashed constantly this season and was playing very poorly, would step it up and actually play a pretty sound defensive game? Or even Mike Sauer, being unnoticed on the ice, which is a pretty good thing for a defenseman. When the players have had the opportunities to step up, they pretty much have. Dubi, Cally, AA, Sauer, Eminger, and Biron have been pretty big for this team this year, especially in this month.

This team has finally created an identity for themselves, they have a great work ethic and will out work you on most nights, they don't give up(see tonights game), they don't give in to horrible calls and non-calls by the idiot refs on the ice, they're actually playing some decent defense too. I like this, this is a great thing for our young guys to be learning, so when the even younger kids and higher rated prospects come along (Kreider, McDonagh, Werek, etc) then they can learn and implement this system too, I like what I'm seeing, hopefully nothing changes too much.