Rangers Analysis: Links, quotes and fights!
The Rangers look to go for four wins in a row tonight, when they host the Florida Panthers at Madison Square Garden. Here are some links for you all.
Andrew Gross over at Rangers Rants takes a quick look at the Brandon Dubinsky Brian Boyle heavyweight fight that occurred in practice last night. Here are some highlights from the full story:
One thing to remember: hockey players fighting is not like you fighting with somebody, even a friend. For the most part, it’s a very swift current taking the water under the bridge. So Brian Boyle and Brandon Dubinsky lobbing a couple of punches at each other at today’s optional skate is not headline material. The two were quickly separated, even as Aaron Voros tried to get in on the action, and joked about it together soon after in the dressing room.
"We’re giving you stuff to write about," Dubinsky told the media as he passed by Boyle’s stall. "The stuff you write is so stale."
Not a big deal, this happens all the time. Literally nothing to look into or analyze, best to forget that it even happened.
Andrew Gross also has a nice quote from Tortorella about what he expects from his team:
"I think sometimes it’s a misconception on the team concept," Tortorella said. "We want to forecheck. But when we talk about it as far as getting up the ice and forechecking and pressuring, people say they just want to go. That certainly hasn’t been our philosophy from Day 1 because you have to play defense in this league. We have changed a little bit in the neutral zone where it’s kind of a hybrid right now. When we have chances to go, we’re going. When we’re not, we’re going to be a little bit smarter as far as filling the middle. That was probably a couple of weeks ago we changed into that. But I think we’ve gotten better defensively, too. When you’re having problems scoring goals, you fall into that trap of just scoring goals and you forget about the details of playing defense. We have always talked about playing defense first and when we say defense first, it doesn’t mean we’re falling back and playing in our end zone. Defense is when you don’t have the puck, just being on the right side of the puck. We’ve gotten better and better on the odd man rushes and that’s just being cognizant of being on the right side of the puck."
Again not sure I can add too much here. Join me after the jump.
Should be a fun one tonight where the Rangers take on the 8th place in the East Panthers. The Panthers are two points ahead of the Rangers with one less win--so a win tonight propels the Rangers to a playoff spot. The last time these two teams met the Rangers beat the Panters 2-1 in the skills competition in Florida.
On some personal notes I would expect the line-up to stay the same as it did against the Hurricanes. Expect Henrik Lundqvist in goal and both Wade Redden and Ales Kotalik in the line-up. The Rangers are going to have to play a very solid gae to be the Panthers, who are a very good team this year.
Prediction time here but I have a gut feeling that Michael Del Zotto has a huge game tonight. Just a thought. What are your thoughts on all of this?