The New York Rangers took the ice looking for their third straight win, but you would not know they were playing that well based on the display they put out there this evening. Simple fact of the matter is the Rangers did
not deserve to even get one point tonight, so I guess there is that positive to
take out of this performance. Only a few
Rangers players even bothered to show up tonight and thankfully for the team
Henrik Lundqvist was at the top of that list.
Henrik was stellar again and other than the flukey goal and the easy
tap-in in OT he stood on his head to keep the team in the game. What he has to witness on the other end was
his offense making a goalie making his second career start look like a Vezina
trophy winner. To Desjardins credit he
did make some very good saves in the game, but he also had a lot of help from
the Rangers shooters as everything was either low or to the glove. There was not one shot high to the blocker
side and there was little to no traffic in front of the net all night.
The Rangers would finally see a sign that
their star player actually felt like showing up tonight when with 46 seconds
left he would score the tying goal. I
know the fact he scored will make a lot of people feel better, but I still
believe it was a pitiful performance.
The goal itself was created mainly by Dan Girardi with help from Brandon
Dubinsky and Artem Anisimov. Girardi
pinches in when the puck was played around by Tampa, takes the hit to keep the
play alive, then Anisimov helped along the boards. Once Tampa had control again it went to
Martin St. Louis, but as he was going to clear Brandon Dubinsky stopped him
with a great stick play which caused the turnover. Girardi gets the puck along the wall fires a
pass to the slot where Gaborik partially flubs a wrister but beats Desjardins
for the goal at 19:14.
The Rangers get the game to OT based on the
late goal and then immediately give the game away when Dana Tyrell comes down
the boards into the Rangers zone and Sauer has him pretty well covered but Matt
Gilroy inexplicably hurls himself across the ice supposedly attempting to block
the centering attempt, misses, and in the process left Nate Thompson wide-open
in front for the tap-in 19 seconds into OT.
Another game, so of course another lousy
first period effort put up by the Rangers.
The team was completely dominated as they were flat from the start and
it never seemed to get better. The
highlight of the period other than Lundqvist was a defensive play by Michal
Rozsival to break up a two-on-one for Steven Stamkos. In the low-lights section there were plenty
of odd-man rushes surrendered and overall awful puck management.
The Lightning would score at 13:03 when after
a lousy play in the offensive zone in which Gaborik gave instead of tracking
back stepped up and instead of actually trying to hit the guy he sticks his
knee out and gets nothing leading the Lightning the other way. Dana Tyrell finally breaks in and looks
towards the middle where Michael Sauer had taken away the pass option and
Tyrell gets lucky as the puck slides off his stick and finds its way through
the legs of Lundqvist.
The team would play somewhat better in the
second, but the stars were the goaltenders as Lundqvist was stellar at his end
and while he had some help from the Rangers typical inability to lift the puck
Desjardins would make some very good saves of his own.
- Anisimov, Boyle, Dubinsky, Prust were the only positively noticeable forwards. Stepan and Zuke had some flashes as well.
- Staal, Girardi and Rozsival played very for the defense and the team did hold the big three scoreless though that was mainly due to Henrik..
- Personally I am tired of Marian "the magician's" disappearing act and will have more on that tomorrow.
- I did enjoy the Rangers team taking turns defending Lundqvist against Dominic Moore as Dubinsky, Boyle, Rozsival and Eminger all took their turn.
