2 Games and 2 Different Outcomes vs. The Isles

Good evening everyone.  Tonight’s game at the Coliseum was one that us Ranger fans have been waiting to see for quite a while, and due to the great all around effort for a change, the Rangers came up on the right side of a 5-2 win over the Islanders.  With this win, they ended a five game winless streak.  The keys to this game were that they played really well and thanks to 3 power play goals and top notch goaltending by Lundqvist.  This was necessary since last night at the Garden they failed to show up at all and it got uglier by the minute as they skated around like they didn’t care one bit.

One huge thing that Tortorella did was to sit a couple of veterans who were not playing well after last night’s game and they were Redden and Kotalik.  Hopefully watching the game from the press box sent a message that the coach is no longer tolerating lousy play from any of his players.

Lundqvist played extremely well as he made some great saves tonight and was the best player on the team in last night’s debacle at MSG.  The bright spots tonight were that the power play scored three times with Gaborik on a 5 on 3 and Callahan tallying twice, there was a Drury sighting as he scored his first goal in what seemed like ages (20 games) and Anisimov tallied on a beautiful move.  One huge moment came in the 3^rd when they were short handed for 4 minutes and played well not allowing the Isles anything.

What I hope is that maybe this team can build off of this win and maybe start a vertical climb up the standings and that they can finally put the puck in the net on a more regular basis.  I’m still not letting Sather off the hook though; he still is responsible for the team that is on the ice that for the most part has been awful a lot of nights with Wednesday’s game being true rock bottom. 

I know I’m going back and forth between games, but I had to get the point across that after the disaster against the Isles on Wednesday at MSG, I wanted to talk about the effects of what a team meeting and being lambasted by the coach can do for a team.

Their next game is Saturday afternoon in Philly where they will face a reeling Flyer team and then they are off to Carolina on Monday evening where they will face the worst team in the league.  Once again, I just want to reinforce that these games are vital and they need to pick up some points soon before the playoff train leaves them in the dust.

Well folks, that’s it till next time.

Your NYR blogger,

Howie