Rangers Up 3-1, So Let's Talk About Penalties...

You've watched the game, you TiVo-ed Rangers in 60, and you already read all about the game on the Internet.

Let me just say a few things, then...

- - Sean Avery took 2 penalties in the last half of the third period, the first being on a race for the puck by the Capitals' goal line. I think this was a marginal penalty, at best. It didn't look like he actually meant to hit Milan Jurcina. Granted, I might be completely wrong, because lately it seems like Avery "accidentally" hits people a lot. But it truly appears to me that he was turning his body quickly, didn't see Jurcina bending over, and clocked him on accident in the head.

The second penalty, though, when he hit a Capital in the face/neck with his stick, was stupid. Yes, Brian Pothier sold the move like he got shot by a bazooka, but Avery never should have done it. I will stand by Avery and how he plays, but this was a stupid, selfish move. He normally puts his teammates first on the ice, and everything he does is to get under someone's skin or help his linemates, but this was stupid. Instead of hitting Alex Semin or Alex Ovechkin, he has been concentrating on bums like Tom Poti and Pothier.

Shouldn't the first penalty, the punch on Jurcina, maybe been a 4-minute minor since it drew blood? Or is that only for high-sticking calls?

- - Quick sidenote: I remember a Ranger game in Boston that I was at in 2006-07 when both teams had a #68 and a #81, and I thought that was really cool. (For the record, Jurcina, Jaromir Jagr, Marcel Hossa, and Phil Kessel.)

- - Paul Mara also took 2 stupid penalties. The first was an interference call where he laid someone out away from the play. A dumb penalty, probably, but you could see the point in it. He knocked someone hard who could have gotten to the puck when it wrapped around the boards.

The second one, where he pushed someone who was chasing the puck into a corner, was ridiculous. It, like Avery's stick-to-the-head, served no purpose and just put the Rangers into a 2-minute hole where Ovechkin, Semin, or Mike Green could've dented the Rangers.

- - Mike Green took a "good" penalty before. He was exhausted from playing a full power play, and when he let Fred Sjostrom blaze by him, he hooked him and took him down before Sjostrom could get the puck.

While he never should have let him blow by him like that, he took a good penalty because it saved a breakaway and it didn't lead to a penalty shot. Avery's hit on Pothier and Mara's useless shove were bad penalties. If a penalty stops a scoring chance, or teaches someone a lesson not to mess with your teammates, that's fine, and a solid 2-minute penalty kill can help your team. But useless penalties demoralize you and invigorate the other team.

- - By the way, there was a part in the 3rd period when the Capitals were on the power play that made me laugh. Every player on the ice, Capitals, Rangers, were completely beat. The Capitals keep their players (Ovechkin, Semin, Green, Nik Backstrom) on so long that by the 1:50 mark of the power play they are phoning it in; and the Rangers had their PK unit out for so long because the couldn't clear.

The end result: a listless power play that couldn't even pass the puck, and a PK unit that couldn't even stop a weak pass.

* * *

All in all, a huge game, like I said earlier, and a gigantic win. It leaves a barrier now where they can win in Washington Friday, but they don't have to.

They now know that even if they lose Game 5, they can close it out on home ice Sunday.

Capitals Win, 4-0

After two very impressive road wins, the Rangers returned home. The Garden faithful (and their awesome glow-in-the-dark) ThunderStix welcomed their home team with open arms. Unfortunately, that's about where things peaked, as the good old Rangers showed up.

The announcers kept talking about how the near-goal by Ryan Callahan was the turning point of the game; after all, if that puck went in, Alexander Semin wouldn't have scored and the game would have been tied 1-1. However, the Caps finally brought their A-game to these playoffs. The Rangers, on the other hand, did not.

If you've read this blog for a while, you've probably read Zach's rants about the Tom Renney-led Rangers and how that team has occasionally shown up under the tutelage of John Tortorella. Tonight was one such night. How bad was it? I actually had to check the boxscore to see if Chris Drury played tonight. Turns out he got ten minutes of ice time. I would have checked to see if Scott Gomez play, but I happened to see him on the ice during the pre-game. Wade Redden managed a whopping one shot on goal in 4:30 of power play time. As a whole, the Rangers were 0-for-6 on the power play, even if some of those power plays didn't last for the full two minutes.

The reason for that, of course, is Sean Avery's 18 penalty minutes. By my estimation, at least two of his four minor penalties were unjustified. The truth is, Avery's repuation precedes him and referees will never give him the benefit of the doubt. This was evidenced when John Erskine cross-checked Avery into the goal right in front of the referee, who declined to call a penalty. It'll be interesting to see if Avery is called into Gary Bettman's office tomorrow after his cheap shot at Simeon Varlamov; the hit certainly fell into the category of a message-sending attack when the score was already decided.

This isn't to knock Avery at all. Avery, Callahan and Lundqvist were the only Rangers to act like they cared about winning. But even a great performance by Lundqvist wasn't enough to win. And make no mistake about it, Varlamov was great tonight. Varlamov, whose goalie mask still features the logo of the AHL's Hershey Bears, can confidently get a new paint job, because he's not going anywhere. One of the best parts of the playoffs is seeing young players emerge as legitimate contributors on the NHL level. Being an upgrade over Jose Theodore isn't saying much, but Varlamov has given the Capitals new life in a series that is suddenly looking like it could go the distance.

You'd like to hope the real Rangers show up on Wednesday night. As an unbiased observer, I sure hope they do. And with home-ice advantage on the line, the Rangers should pull out all the stops on Wednesday. So should the Capitals. We should be in store for a great game on Wednesday.