Rangers Recap: Hurricanes 4 Rangers 2
Ever have one of those situations where you feel like you have everything under control, and then in the blink of an eye, everything goes horribly wrong?
That's the way last night's game felt. The Rangers were outplaying the Canes almost every step of the way, dominating the 5 on 5 play, the PK was strong, even the power play had managed to get a goal. Although they had never led, even at 2-2, you had to feel this game was the Rangers to win.
Then boom, two turnovers, two Canes goals, and it was gone, all gone. 22 seconds in hell, and the Rangers wake up this morning as the 8th seed.
Even though the Rangers did get a power play goal, this power play is just awful. The Rangers seemingly have no one capable of quarterbacking the power play from the point. They even tried Drury and Callahan out there, nothing is working.
When you get to this point in the season, and are in the position the Rangers are in, you lament the ones that got away. This is one of those games, Atlanta last week was one of those games. The Rangers have no one else to blame for the mess they are in, and if things don't change quickly, the lights go out on Broadway next Sunday. This is a tough, tough, loss.
I give the Canes credit, they took what the Rangers gave them, and capitalized on it. The Rangers had plenty of opportunities to go ahead in this game, and failed to do it.
The hit on Lundqvist early in the game was scary, on one of the replays it looked like there could have been a serious knee problem. After he got up, it looked like his shoulder was bothering him not the knee, and although he looked shaky for awhile after, he seemed to come around as the game went on.
A few final notes on the game:
- Congrats to Corey Potter on his first goal, and he just missed a 2nd in the 3rd period
- Nice leg whip by Zherdev to take down Brind'Amour in the 2nd, although he almost got his face slashed open in the process
- Girardi scores first time in 54 games, there's that number again.
- Somebody explain to me how Sean Avery is on all fours in the crease, getting punched in the head, and he gets the penalty.
- Freddie Sjostrom reminds me of Jan Erixon, but faster. Most of you are probably too young to remember Erixon, but he was a great checker and a sharp defensive forward for the Rangers in the 80's and early 90's. He was often assigned the duty of shadowing Mario Lemieux back in the day, and used to do a damn good job of it.
That's all I have for now, more later today.