A Big Two Points...

Yes this was indeed a big two points - two points that if the Rangers wound up losing this game and missing the playoffs by 1 or 2 points, you look to this game as being the reason.

However, a (basically) 2-1 victory against the worst team in the league when you are desperate?

 

I will still harp on the fact that Scott Gomez does not deserve such grandiose amounts of power play time. It was a crappy shot - one of his famous ones - that happened to go in. 99 out of 100 times, that shot is saved, but Yann Danis dropped it, it fell, and went in the net.

It was Gomez's second PP goal of the year. No doubt, he plays more time on the power play than nearly anybody on the team.

Wade Redden - highest paid defensemen on the team, 5th best in terms of talent - still gets put out on the point regardless of how many times he can't shoot and can't control the puck. Oh, the perks that come with an irrationally high contract.

Listen, it was a big win. They needed the points. But if they can't score more than 2 goals with a goalie in the net against the worst team in the league (while they are playing a cache of AHL players, no less), you are going to have a hell of a tough time playing Boston, Philadelphia, and/or New Jersey in the playoffs.

Shots...

Phil Esposito, in his high-scoring career, always said that the more you shot, the more you scored. 

I don't disagree with Phil, but I also think that it's the quality of shots as opposed to the quantity. I do agree that if you get the puck to the net, your chances of scoring multiply greatly (and that is the most obvious statement I've ever said), but crappy shots from the goal line rarely go in (unless your team was playing the Rangers during last year's Western Canadian road trip, when shots by Vancouver and Calgary snuck by Henrik Lundqvist at the post).

Who has the most shots on goal for the Rangers this year? If you play fantasy hockey, you would already know the answer to this. Far and away, Scott Gomez has the most. His 146 shots are 10 more than Ryan Callahan, 15 more than Chris Drury, and 29 more than anybody else on the team. Keep in mind, Gomez also sat out 5 games to injury.

Of forwards who get regular ice time, Gomez is last in shooting percentage, clocking in at a very un-$7M/year 5.5%. (Colton Orr and Fred Sjostrom have lower percentages, as do 4 defensemen.) He has 8 goals on those shots, and two of those are empty netters. So the real math is as follows...

6 goals. 144 shots. 4.2% of his shots go past a goaltender.

Against Pittsburgh on Sunday, the Rangers had 33 shots on goal, technically. The Penguins had 23 shots.

The shot selection was the key to victory for the Penguins (as well as a listless effort by the Rangers, but that's another story altogether).

The Penguins were able to break through the defense of the Rangers and get odd-man rushes and breakaways on Lundqvist. Tyler Kennedy basically danced in all alone while Nigel Dawes did nothing to stop Kennedy's shot that beat Lundqvist. The Rangers take a multitude of hooking and holding penalties when they don't have to, yet to stop a goal, all Dawes had to do was slash his stick or yank his arm, and he didn't do it. 

The Rangers couldn't penetrate the injured defensive players of Pittsburgh, and wound up taking awful shots from the goal line and near the boards. ESPN Magazine had an interesting line about how Guy LaFleur and others used to shoot from the boards and it would go in, but thanks to the new stay-at-home goalies, that's a thing of the past. Someone should tell Gomez (and the rest of the team as well).

How many REAL chances did the Rangers get? Coach Tom Renney said maybe five. I know Dawes had a great one that beat Marc-Andre Fleury but rang off the crossbar. Nikolai Zherdev did some fancy moves and nearly deked around 3 enemy skaters but lost the puck at the end. Drury had a 4-on-3 shot that almost went in. Crossbar, nearly, almost. Story of the season.

I would rather the Rangers take 10 shots per game if they are all from in the slot. These half-hearted attempts at throwing the puck to the net in hopes of causing rebounds are atrocious. These rebounds aren't being picked up by Ranger players because they aren't in front of the net! They're playing perimeter hockey, and goals just don't get scored that way. 

If Renney is content winning 1-0 and 2-1 games, then by all means, play the perimeter and hope to get lucky. But to be honest, the defense isn't good enough to make one-goal leads hold up for more than a game or two at a time. Once the Rangers are exposed, they are exposed.

Yes, Phil Esposito scored a lot, and he shot a lot. But his shots were from in the slot, prime real estate, in front of a screened goalie. That's how you score goals, not when the goalie clearly sees the puck traveling in at a 180 degree angle.

Disaster in Montreal...

Jeez, do they really miss Blair Betts that much?

I will be quick tonight. Since the Rangers didn't show up to play, I shouldn't show up to write much about it.

Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha were the only highlights today, although Henrik Lundqvist didn't play bad. He just had no support in front of him and had to overcompensate many times. Scott Gomez, although a -4, wasn't awful, either.

On one goal, Marc Staal did nothing near the right wing faceoff circle while Michal Rozsival stood in front of Lundqvist. Tic, tac, toe, goal. Rozsival barely moved his head, didn't move his feet. Was he tired? Do the Rangers need a 7th defenseman to come up if only for back-to-back games when Rozsival - a professional athlete, mind you - is too tired to skate? You would think $5M you don't deserve would be motivation enough, never mind the fact that you're playing in freakin' Montreal tonight.

On another goal, Paul Mara went after the puck carrier on Lundqvist's right. Dmitri "Not a Defenseman" Kalinin left his post on Lundqvist's left to attack the same guy Mara was going after. That player passed to the person Kalinin should've been guarding. Goal. Game over.

Dan Girardi, can you repay me for my jersey and the damage you caused my fantasy team today? I'm already getting crushed this week in +/-, I don't need your -2 hurting me. And what a -2 it was! Standing like a tree in a storm as Canadien players thrash by you and you don't move. Great! You're still one of my favorites on the team, but tonight you had a stinker indeed. 

The only reason Wade Redden wasn't horrible tonight is because he only played half a game before getting hurt.

I can deal with a bad game. They happen. You're tired, I understand. But bad effort? I can't stand for that. I wish my ticket money wasn't paying Rozsival and Redden to do nothing continuously.

* * * 

Seriously, though. I joke about it, but why did Kalinin ever decide to be a defender? Was he the only kid on his high school team in Chelyabinsk, Russia, who could skate backwards? He pinches on the rush, chases the puck behind the enemy's goal line, and today, I caught him leading the rush into the offensive zone.

At no point does he make smart defensive plays, check players hard, or use his body to block the shot. His positioning is even horrible, and at least 3 goals in the past 2 games are completely his fault.

We need a 7th d-man up from Hartford if only to have him sit for a game.

Jaromir Jagr, Psychic?...

No, I'm not blaming the referees for the loss last night, I'm just saying that when the Rangers ask the league to watch Cindy Crosby's dives, maybe they should heed the warning.

But you can't blame the refs for the good guys blowing that dreaded 3-goal lead. Blame deflections. The Penguins scored 2 real goals, had 1 goal go off of Evgeni Malkin's shin, and had 2 hit off of Rangers. In the Devils series, NJ scored 11 goals, 6 real shots, 5 off of Rangers.

The Rangers have to be wary of this. They draw players to the outside, which is good, but then the guys throw pucks at the net, they pinball around, and past Henrik Lundqvist. What can they do about this? I don't know, but then again, I'm not the coach. Tom Renney has to do something about it, because they do play fairly decent defense, and then the other team scores a garbage goal to go up 5-4 with 1:41 left.

Once again, not blaming anyone. Just saying that they need to address this issue.

* * * 

An excerpt from a blog by Sam Weinman last year, after Game 4 of the Rangers/Sabres series...

“I made a great pass,” `Lundqvist pleaded.

“Yeah, but it was to Chris Drury,” Jagr said. “Maybe next year. But don’t pass to him yet.”

Better To Be Lucky Than Good

You know, I'm all for working hard and making your own luck and all that. But that third Rangers goal tonight has to be one of the luckiest deciding goals I've ever seen. Granted, that goal doesn't get scored if Nigel Dawes doesn't drive hard to the net. But still. I've only seen one more fortuitous bounce on a winning goal - the time Donald Brashear banked a shot off the face of Scott LaChance and into the net back in 1995, giving Montreal the win over the Islanders.

Speaking of luck, I can't wait for the Rangers to get the sixth seed... again... and face the Southleast winner... again. I swear, why can't these kind of things happen to my team?