Warren Zevon was an incredible singer-songwriter who died of cancer in 2003. For anyone who has never listened to him, I highly recommend listening to his album The Wind, which was released a month before his death. "Keep Me in Your Heart" is an absolutely amazing goodbye to the world.
Anyway, he had a hockey song once upon a time, off of his 2001 album My Ride's Here, a song the Rangers should take to heart...
There were Swedes to the left of him / Russians to the right / A Czech at the blue line looking for a fight / Brains over brawn, that might work for you / But what's a Canadian farm boy to do / What else can a farm boy from Canada to do / But what's a Canadian farm boy to do / What else can a farm boy from Canada to do / "Hit somebody!" was what the crowd roared
Man! Every game, I just want to yell "Hit somebody!"
Eric Boulton and Christoph Schubert had their way with the Rangers' roster tonight - hitting from behind, knocking them to the ice, leaping off the ice for checks. And what did the Rangers do? Nothing.
Mike Del Zotto and Eric Staal hit hard tonight, sure, but it wasn't a deterrent.
Donald Brashear makes $1.4M and hasn't been in a fight since November. Not that fights are the only measure of a man, but it's not exactly like people are scared of him. This isn't like 2006 when people aren't taking runs at Alex Ovechkin because they know that they - or their team's superstar - will have to face Brashear's wrath. He is a joke who skates away from confrontation.
To be honest, I don't care if he's playing hurt or not. If he is playing hurt, he should still contribute. If he's too hurt to play, take a seat, and someone will play in your absence. You can yap to the opponent all you want when you're on the bench, but if you don't follow it up with physical, punishing play, it's all for waste.
(Last year, Colton Orr was that deterrent for the team. And if everyone can now remember what Brashear did to Blair Betts in Game 6 when Orr was a healthy scratch...)
When Sean Avery plays his game, he is highly effective, but he's not a huge hitter. He will throw his body around, but he's smaller than most guys he hits.
They need to start hitting and taking control of the game. Wade Redden, Michal Rozsival, Brashear, Chris Higgins, Matt Gilroy, please wake up and start knocking people around.
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One other thing they need to start hitting? The net!
I'm convinced that Brandon Dubinsky and Staal have an aversion to hitting the net. Combined, they must've shot high and/or wide 10 times in the back-to-back games against Dallas and Atlanta. Maybe they think Chris Drury is always there to deflect it on goal.
If Higgins ever made an All-Star team, he would go 0-for-everything in the shooting accuracy competition.
Ryan Callahan has 10 goals this year. If he knew how to hit the net, he'd have 20.
It's getting to the point where the power play is ridiculous because they shoot every puck wide. Two-on-ones, breakaways, doesn't matter. The puck rarely gets to the net.
* * *
And no, I'm not just saying all this because they lost. I would've said the same thing even if they won.
However, if they were able to smash people or hit the net, perhaps they wouldn't have lost tonight.
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