during the playoffs i have read several posts about hockey tactics in some discussions and was a bit amused how people mix things up. i am not an expert (coach) for myself, but i know some principles about hockey strategies. i hope that people with greater knowledge than me correct my mistakes and add thoughts. i am not trying to teach anybody wrong with this post, just want to find some clarrification, so that everybody is on the same page. for those who are familiar with this, please add your knowledge. please excuse my bad english since i am not a native speaker.

the explanations follow after the jump

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Not really but it would be so amazing if I did. Anyways, moving on.

The other day, I got into a conversation with my freinds about the Pre-lockout NY Rangers, when Cablevision owned the team during the team's "Dark Ages" (1997-2004). We all remembered what happened during that time, right? Lemme remind you...

1. Change in management and contract issues with Mark Messier led him to walk away and sign with the Vancouver Canucks. Rangers miss playoffs and the team's coveted FA signings of Wayne Gretzky and Pat LaFontaine that they glorified during their "not resigning messier" explanation did not exceed to their expectations.

2. Missed drafting Zach Parise and instead selected Hugh Jessiman in 2003 Draft. Plus other failures and choices at the drafts.

3. Rangers trade two players and two draft picks to Tampa Bay for their 1st round pick, Pavel Brendl

4. Rangers trade Marc Savard to Calgary for 1st round pick, selecting Jamie Lundmark

5. Theo Fleury, Eric Lindros, Mike Dunham

6. Fire Sale of 2004!

7. Trading Brian Leetch and not letting him retire as a Ranger

Just to name a few incidents.

Right now I have a time machine for you all. It will take you back to June 8, 1997, the day after the Red Wings won the Stanley Cup. You have the opportunity to be GM and prevent this team from doing what the did. What would you do?

For starters, here is their 1997 roster with playoff stats:

Player	GP	G	A	Pts	PIM
Wayne Gretzky	15	10	10	20	2
Esa Tikkanen	15	9	3	12	26
Mark Messier	15	3	9	12	6
Luc Robitaille	15	4	7	11	4
Brian Leetch	15	2	8	10	6
Russ Courtnall	15	3	4	7	0
Doug Lidster	15	1	5	6	8
Niklas Sundstrom	9	0	5	5	2
Alexander Karpovtsev	13	1	3	4	20
Adam Graves	15	2	1	3	12
Mike Eastwood	15	1	2	3	22
Ulf Samuelsson	15	0	2	2	30
Jeff Beukeboom	15	0	1	1	34
Bruce Driver	15	0	1	1	2
Bill Berg	3	0	0	0	2
Christian Dube	3	0	0	0	0
Shane Churla	15	0	0	0	20
Eric Cairns	3	0	0	0	0
David Oliver	3	0	0	0	0
Darren Langdon	10	0	0	0	2
Dallas Eakins	4	0	0	0	4
Peter Ferraro	2	0	0	0	0
Patrick Flatley	11	0	0	0	14
Ken Gernander	9	0	0	0	0

Courtesy of Wikipedia, did not want to include players that left the team during the season.

I'll start in the comments.

One great thing about the Ranger's playoff run so far has been the offensive contributions from the defensemen. After last night's game 1 of the Eastern Conference, 9 of the Rangers 32 playoff goals have come off defenders' sticks. This 28% ratio is much higher than the ranger regular season's 13.5% and the highest playoff ratio of the four remaining playoff teams by far. What's more, these goals are coming at crucial times. Ranger's defensemen have scored 4 game winning goals so far this postseason. They only scored 5 game winning goals all regular season. Awesome to see this - the Rangers are truly winning as a team.

Just wondering whether anyone had any update on Michael Sauer's status?

Have not heard anything about him recently.

Is he supposed to be ready at any point in the near future? Beginning of next season?

Since I need to get my word count up...

Heck of a game last night!

Were a little shaky in the 2nd period but really dominated the 3rd period.

Henrik was a wall, if the Hart goes to the MOST VALUABLE player NOT the BEST he is the winner hands down.

I remember some people expressed some interest in meeting up for one of these games, I was wondering who would actually really want to do it? I would be more than willing to go, tickets are a bit expensive, but it is the playoffs. So if anyone would really want to go then just comment on here. If I remember correctly, I believe Dig Deep said he would also want to go to one of these games, so whoever wants to go we can just plan on here.

Right now on stubhub, most tickets for more than 2 people are around $205 and up for both games. Anyone interested, let's discuss.

There has been alot of hype surrounding the devil's offense. Scoring 3.00 goals per game, they do look rather intimidating next to the blueshirt's measily 2.07 goals per game. Nevertheless, during the regular the season, the devils were 15th in the league, scoring 2.63 goals per game. Against the panthers, they performed at about their average...scoring 2.57 goals per game. This suggests that the relatively high offensive output that the devils have had in the postseason has come against the flyers. The Philadelphia Flyers...sure they score a lot of goals...but they were 20th during the regular season in goals against (letting up 2.74 goals per game). Bryz and the flyers d went from bad to worse in the post season...surrendering 4 goals per game. In other words, there's no reason to think this devils offense is more dangerous than it was in the regular season. Their forecheck...which dominated the flyers...was extremely inconsistent in the florida series. Florida was 12th in goals against during the regular season, allowing 2.63 goals per game.
The rangers impressively surrendered only 2.22 goals per game in the regular season, and only 1.86 goals per game since the post seaosn began. They did so against an ottawa team that was 4th best in goals per game during the regular season, scoring 2.96. The rangers sterilized the ottawa offense allowing them to score just 1.86 goals per game...pretty impressive. The rangers also reduced the regular season output of the caps (2.66 goals per game, which is slightly better than the devils) to just 2.07 goals per game. In other words, the rangers are a much better on defense and in net than either florida or philly. I don't think anyone could deny that. Given their average performance against the average d and goaltending of the panthers, i think the devils offense is in for a wakeup call. A few days from now, i hope we are listening to nbc's analyst asking where all of the offensive production of the devils has gone.
So here's the bad news. Although they had similar offensive output to the caps during the regular season...they were much better definsively. The devils were 9th in goals againt per game at 2.50, and have lowered that number to 2.33 in the post season despite have played against phillys explosive offense. Couple this with the fact that the rangers have dropped from scoring 2.71 in the regular season to 2.07 goals per game in the post season...and there is reason to believe that the rangers offensive struggles might get worse. The question here is...why has the rangers offense dropped off? and will those factors continue to hurt them during this series? In the ottawa series...its tough to point to a single factor...Losing hagelin off the top line for three games hurt their offense. Getting too emotional hurt their offense. Against the caps...holtby was phenomenal...no doubt about it. Much better than brodeur has looked thus far. The caps also appeared to commit to hunters defensive system more consistently than they had done in the regular season. Everyone (including ovechkin and semin) were blocking shots like crazy. Tough to say who has the better D between the caps and devils, but based on goals against per game during the regular season the devils have the edge. In the post season the caps had the edge, allowing only 2.14 goals per game against the bruins and rangers. So who's better? I would say the devils defense/goaltending will give the rangers offense less trouble than those of washington. Just a hunch.
What does it all mean? Well, i see no reason to fear the offense of the devils. they have their threats...but they arent any better than they were during the regular season, in my opinion. Blueshirt have shown that they can sterilize the devil's offense before...and the rangers are playing some of their best defense of the year this post season. The real question is how effective the rangers offense will be against this devils defense. Brodeur will let up more goals than holtby...but only if the blueshirts are able to get a similar number of shots to the net.
Now I realize i have used just a couple stat categories to talk about the offensive and defensive abilities of these teams...and that doing so is in some ways limiting. But i do think these numbers tell a tale....tonight we'll see how true that tale is! Let's go Rangers!!!

Bet you thought I was selling some....What's the likelihood of getting a pair of tickets with a good decent view of the ice to the game on Saturday without paying the prices i'm seeing on stubhub? For the first time ever I'm in a position to catch a playoff game at home. I live an easy four hours away, so between the travel and the incidental expenses and four and five hundred dollars a ticket just becomes too far out of reach. I know the scalpers will be out in force, but I'm not sure I trust that source enough to make the trip and then just hope for a better deal. Thoughts?

The Rangers did it again, got themselves a nice lead with some confidence only to f*%# it up again. Did you expect anything else? Do the Rangers ever make anything easy?

Now this series is coming back to the Garden for game 7. There's a lot leaning on this outcome. Here's my reasons why this one game will be more important than any other this season. Lets start at the very beginning:

-The captaincy of Ryan Callahan. Aside from The King, who is more beloved by the blueshirt faithful? It was amazing to have him as captain and i was proud to have a native New Yorker leading us. How awesome would it be to go so far in the playoffs in his first year as captain of the Rangers?

-Brad Richards. His hype. His clutchness. His contract. Need i say more?

-Hanks Vezina year. How nice would it be for his offense to actually work for him and make his first trip to the conference finals?

-Marc Staal. We lost him for half the season. Once we got him back he played a little shaky. People doubted he would ever return to his true form. Now hes pretty much our lock down defense man in these playoffs.

-The Winter Classic. How awesome was that?

-6-0 against the Flyers? "You Can't Beat Us!''

-1st seed in the east since 94.

-The appearance of Carl Hagelin and John Mitchell

-Keeping Dubinsky and not trading him for Nash because the Rangers were "like a family"

-Michael Sauer. Do it for him.

You see, not much of these points mean anything if the Rangers can't get their act together and get out of the second round! The stars are alined for them. All the top seed teams are out. If we get by Washington i guarantee a trip to the Stanley Cup finals. This season was the best i have ever seen in my life. But it means nothing unless they put their hearts into the playoffs. So lets get this done. Lets Go Rangers.

ps. devils suck

I'm sitting at my desk basking in the glow of a victory snatched from the jaws of defeat, trying (and failing miserably) to concentrate on what needs to be done. Living in NE PA (and listening to garbage from Philly/Pitt fans), I don't often get to see the blueshirts play, and due to finances, I rarely get to the Garden for an actual game. It occurred to me this morning that I get far more out of the season reading BSB than I did getting random recaps and stories from the major sports outlets. For me, at least, the excitement and inevitable disapointment in the stories and comments are contagious. I don't often comment, and when I do, I do a hell of a job sticking my foot in my gaping maw of a mouth. However, I appreciate everyone sharing their insight, BS, statistical analysis (that I'll probably never understand fully), and emotion on the site. It's been one hell of a season so far....and lest I forget...LGR!! (Apologies if this is disjointed, I've spent an hour fitting this in between calls and customers).

Amazing win tonight, can't describe it honestly. Now up 3-2 in the series, we still need 1 more to advance, this will be the hardest one. Now just hoping and praying they can get this win to play in the next round, and I'm not assuming a victory or anything, but would anyone would want to go to one of the games at MSG? I was just looking on stubhub for tickets and was wondering if anyone would wanna meet up for a playoff game. Right now most of the cheap tickets are around $250, and probably will be going up sooner rather than later.

I live in a place where most of my friends who like hockey are Devils fans, which is fun yet stinks. It's always a pain to find a Rangers fan to with, so I usually have a limited selection of Rangers friends to ask, sometimes I do stoop down a level and ask Devils fans unfortunately. Would anyone on here be interested at all? I don't really have a particular home game for the next round in mind, although I prefer the tickets to be on the less expensive side lol, but if anyone wants to get together for a game, just comment on here or so, would love to be at MSG for a playoff game this season.

Poll

Which team do most of the people in your surrounding area root for?

44%

Rangers

13 votes

31%

Devils

9 votes

6%

Flyers

2 votes

6%

Islanders

2 votes

10%

Other (explain in comments?)

3 votes

29 votes | Poll has closed