Rangers Recap: Bruins 1 Rangers 0
You sit and wonder how a team whose players admit that they are "fighting for their playoff lives" could come out and do the exact opposite.
- The Rangers didn't hit, didn't skate real hard, didn't work to create good scoring chances, and went quietly in to the good afternoon 1-0 losers to a Bruins team that scored 9 minutes in, and defended the lead brilliantly for the rest of the game.
- I don't question John Tortorella too much, but I have to wonder why in a game where the Rangers were severely lacking "oomph", why a couple of guys who wear helmets full of the stuff, Blair Betts and Colton Orr, were left to rot on the bench, with a combined 6 and a half minutes of ice time. I know Torts has preached and preached and preached that he is not a "four line guy", but what have you got to lose when your top 3 lines aren't getting it done? I'm not a huge Orr fan, but if he gets on the ice a little more and throws the meat around, it might have woken up the millionaires on the top 3 lines.
- Henrik Lundqvist didn't appear to be suffering any ill effect from the hit he took on Thursday, stopping every shot Boston threw at him, except the first one. I think Carolina scored on Thursday night on their 3rd shot on goal. Weird.
- I wonder if a team has ever won a game 1-0 when they scored on their first shot on goal before yesterday.
- Haven't heard anything on Antropov yet, hopefully its nothing serious.
- With each passing game, I become more and more certain that Zherdev is a goner at the end of the year. I get the distinct feeling Tortorella doesn't want anything to do with him. A lot has been made about how Torts feels about Avery, but I don't think he'll ever question Avery's work ethic; the guy brings it every night, full speed. The same can't be said about Zherdev. Think of him as Kovalev: The Next Generation.
- So the Rangers will head home for a game Tuesday night against the Habs. 3 games left, and I would hardly classify the Rangers as "getting hot at the right time".
- Well, I wouldn't be doing my job if I didn't finish with the Sean Avery stick slap to the head of goalie Tim Thomas. As I said during the game thread yesterday, Avery gave him the "Hansen Brothers" treatment. I understand what Avery is trying to do there; he is doing what he is paid to do, agitate. He deserved a penalty, although I didn't like the fact that the penalty was called after the referee's saw it on the arena scoreboard. Since when do we let the refs call penalties this way? Sam and Joe touched on it briefly, even saying the arena isn't supposed to show the replay. Whether or not that's true I don't know.
Here is the video of the Sean Avery-Tim Thomas tussle, it took me a while to find a clip from the MSG feed,most everyone had the Bruins feed.
