On this Thanksgiving Eve The Rangers would be in Tampa Florida to take on the Tampa Bay Lightning though for two periods you would have thought someone forgot to inform the Rangers they had a game to play tonight. The effort in the game was embarrassing in a 5-3 loss that looks a lot closer in a box-score than it did on the ice. Following the game, John Tortorella in his press conference called out his best players for not showing up tonight and when asked specifically about Marian Gaborik said that he was one of those who was absent from the roll call on the ice. The video of the press conference, here, is worth a watch because it is not the typical attention grabbing thing but a true honest assessment of the team and what went on in the game.
Other news from the game included my take on the Avery/Ohlund issue in the third period after a clean and legal hit by Ohlund on Erik Christensen. Frankly it is becoming all too common in the NHL for guys to have to fight over perfect legal hits and personally it is becoming too common to witness the double standard some have when Avery is involved. My take is here.
The other main stories of the day were my what if scenario about if the rumored trade for Steven Stamkos had happened and he had become a Ranger and the other was about how the Rangers change in approach this past offseason put them in a better position this year and the future. In the Stamkos story I looked at what some of the rumored packages would have meant for the Rangers current construction and sought to see if the Rangers would be better had the move happened and if with him they would have been a contender. I think the Rangers saw first-hand tonight how talented that young man is and how lethal he can be. In the other story it was a talk about how the Rangers finally eschewed the big name, big dollar free agents and aside from Boogaard and to a lesser extent Biron waited for the market to lower prices on players and stockpiled players who only had one year contracts giving them players motivated to prove something and flexibility both financially and in terms of roster spots for the future.
Oh there was the pregame as well, in which my key matchup for the game happened to turn out to be dead on the money.
