Battle Of Hudson

Anyway, NBC did a pretty good job. The only blunder was really the Rags-Bruins HD Feed which, while better than the FSN HD feeds – where the sound fades in and out – just had terrible sound in the first few minutes, and really kept me from watching most of the rest of the game.

Good to see Jed Ortmeyer get one though.

Derek will forever hate NBC for the fact that they cut off their Finals coverage in the middle of the skateround after the Canes won it.

Their LA-STL broadcast was really good. They had JD in the middle. It was free food day, and Jay-Dizzle served some of it up. 6-5, Yutaka Fukufuji did not look out of place in his first NHL game, and the LA defense revved it up to make sure it went that way. Lee Stempniak’s quickly becoming one of my favorites, the kid outta Dartmouth can flat-out play.

Didn’t see as much of PHI-PIT as of LA-STL, but Eddie O. is quite useless when you have Doc and Pierre. Really for that team, they should use Doc and Pierre, and have Edzo in the studio, or use him in some other capacity.

Onto the Devs…

58 Minutes of nothing. That takes care of most of it.

Late 3rd. Madden moves in with Brylin, Brylin tries to get to the front, is hooked off by one Isles D-man, who blocks the other one from getting to MadDog, who rips it to the shelf to make it 1-0 Devils with about 80 seconds left.

Isles come back with about a half-second to go. Raffy to the box (Sidebar: Why is Raffy going to Dallas?!?!?!?! Of all the Devils tat could’ve gone, Gio, Elias, well…that’s kinda it, but still Raffy! Raffy!) and Satan is wide open in front, in fact two are open in front. You know why? BECAUSE COLIN WHITE AND PAUL MARTIN SUCK!

Anyway, OT. Bruno Gervais pinches in and pinches a loaf on this one. Gets a sweet feed across and fans. Elias and Gomer go up ice. Gomer passes to Elias, back to Gomer who Deposits behind DiPi and the Devils get the extra point by a final score of 2-1.

If you saw it from my vantagepoint, he was. More of a comment on how lackluster NJ was though.

It was Lehtonen, Brylin, Gomer at 3, 2, 1.

The big question entering their final game of a three-game homestand today was would the stumbling Rangers fall into another bad losing streak with seemingly no end in sight drawing even more boos from a crowd which had seen them win only nine of their first 21 on Garden ice? Aside from that though, the other question was how would they respond after almost rallying from five down in the third before falling to Ottawa even though there was controversy?

Tom Renney’s club provided both answers by playing one of their better overall games from start to finish in a much needed 3-1 triumph over the Bruins in an Original Six matinee match-up on NBC today. More workman like, they outhustled and outplayed the B’s most of the game and were rewarded for it. And that’s how it should be with this team that too often has left fans wondering wtf is going on.

Before I talk about the goalscorers in this one, it’s worth noting that there were changes up front and on the blueline. Most notably, Jason Ward and Adam Hall were healthy scratches. They were replaced by waiver pickup Jason Krog and ex-Bruin Colton Orr, who returned after serving a five-game suspension for the incident against the Caps on December 30. Meanwhile, Thomas Pock replaced Darius Kasparaitis on a D where all the pairings were changed. Pock played with Michal Rozsival while Marek Malik teamed with Aaron Ward and Fedor Tyutin worked with Karel Rachunek. For the most part, the changes paid off as they rarely panicked in their zone and did a better job now allowing rebound shots. They made Henrik Lundqvist’s day easy. The second-year Swede finished with 24 saves.

Meanwhile, one-time Isle Krog was brought in to center the fourth line and help solidify the center position. I wasn’t crazy about this move because once again, this organization is looking to a vet to solve a problem instead of showing some confidence in a prospect. Jarkko Immonen was sent back to Hartford. I guess he’s been blackballed. Anyway, Krog started anchoring Orr and Cullen but finished the match with Marcel Hossa and Jed Ortmeyer as Renney switched all four lines after the first period. I’m going to give kudos to Krog, who played with spunk in his first game and fit in well. We’ll see if it continues Tuesday night when the Blueshirts visit first place New Jersey.

As for the goalscorers, Michael Nylander, Martin Straka and Jed Ortmeyer supplied the offense. Starting with the same players he finished the other night with, Nylander made the hard work of Hossa in front pay off by backhanding a rebound past Tim Thomas to give his club a lead at 10:34. Hossa picked up an assist to make it points in consecutive games. But as has been the case much of this season, the Bruins came right back 38 seconds later thanks to a fluky goal by ex-Blueshirt Marc Savard off a faceoff win. A Zdeno Chara point shot deflected off Pock’s leg and off Savard’s skate to tie it. Replays showed that it wasn’t intentional. So it stood.

The Rangers would dominate the second outshooting the Bruins 21-3 but only had one goal to show for it thanks to Straka. Reunited with Nylander and Jaromir Jagr, he rebounded home a Nylander shot at 5:52 to tie Jagr and Brendan Shanahan for the team lead in goals with 24. The Blueshirts also had a couple of power plays but couldn’t extend the lead and took the one-goal lead to the locker room.

The third was more back and forth as the Bruins lifted their level somewhat to try to tie things and nearly did a couple of times in the final half of the stanza. But P.J. Axelsson somehow didn’t get a wide open look from in front on Lundqvist. The Bruins would get one more big opportunity when Pock went to the box with 3:14 left. But a hustle play by Ortmeyer proved to be the difference. Poking the puck past a Bruin, he turned it into a clear shorthanded breakaway and was hauled down forcing a penalty shot. It set the stage for the popular 28 year-old American to be the hero with 2:47 remaining. In only his sixth game back from a pulsonary embollism, Ort faked a shot and then deked Thomas beating him to the forehand to score his first goal of the season and receive congrats from a joyous bench which included his buddy Ryan Hollweg. Before he took the shot, Hollweg gave him some advice. But Ort wisely didn’t listen:

“He was telling me that the goalie likes to take away the bottom half of the net away and to try to get it up in the air. He must have saw it on SportsCenter…I just wanted to fake a shot. Blocking shots, hitting and bringing energy is what night in and night out I can contribute to the team. Something like that is just a bonus.“

And that’s what makes No.41 number one in Ranger fans hearts. He might not have the most talent but night in and night out, you know what kind of effort you’re going to get from the gritty kid from football country in Omaha, Nebraska. He is the epitome of a team player. And now that we’ve seen what he’s already added, who thinks him being out cost this team a few wins? Just being in the right spot on the PK or forechecking aggressively makes a difference. And already he is. Good for Ort!

3 Stars:

Third Star-Tim Thomas (35 saves)
Second Star- Michael Nylander (goal, assist)
First Star- Jed Ortmeyer (SH penalty shot goal)

Shanahan Selected For All Star Game: Today the rest of the All Star rosters were announced. Only one Ranger will be representing the club in Dallas. That will be 37 year-old veteran Brendan Shanahan. Shanahan will be making his eighth appearance. Previously, he’s represented the Blues once, Whalers once and the Red Wings five times. Signed as a UFA last summer, he’s played very well in his first season as a Blueshirt, tied with Jagr and Straka for first with 24 goals while pacing them with 12 PPG. It was during their Opening Night win over Washington that Shanahan scored twice to become the 12th player to reach the 600 Goal Club. He was later joined by teammate Jagr, who accomplished the feat in a home win over Tampa Bay. His 46 points (24-22-46) rank fourth on the team. But it’s not all about points as he’s provided leadership as well and is deserving of the honor. As expected, Jagr will not go to the All Star Game, opting instead to use the week off to further rehab his repaired shoulder. If there were two Rangers who were snubbed, that would be Straka (24-31-55) and Rozsival (5-19-24) who have flown under the radar in a mediocre season. Nylander (15-37-52) also was a candidate. But whenever you have All Star selections, players will always be snubbed to make sure every team is represented.

I’m going to have disagree with you on Brodeur being the best player last night. Sure, his team won and he allowed one goal but he didn’t really face many shots or quality chances and was kind of fortunate that a Kovalchuk shot deflected off the crossbar or it’s a different game. On the other hand, Kari Lehtonen made a lot of big stops in that game last night. If not for a silly penalty by Holik, I don’t think the Devils beat the second-year Finn as he was really on which Chico Resch eluded to during the telecast.

The lack of discipline by Atlanta cost them the game as well as a lack of aggressiveness. To be honest, it made for a very boring game as Atlanta played tenatively throughout and didn’t attack much with the lead. Maybe that’s cause they hadn’t won lately. But with the weapons they have, you’d think they’d show more desperation. In the end, a flukey bounce wound up being the difference as the puck took a weird hop to Brylin, who made it two PP goals in 27 seconds for the victorious Devs.

And yes, I knew there was no way Atlanta was tying it. What does that say? I’ll leave it for you to decide.

Finally, I felt that Gionta was your best forward and worked well with Gomez and Elias, who each had strong games. That line was going all night. If I were to choose three stars, I’d go:

3rd Star-Brylin
2nd Star-Gionta
1st Star-Lehtonen

So what were the three stars?

Well, I had a good look at the game from Section 117, and boy was this crowd dead until Mike Rupp absolutely reefed Bradon Coburn with two headshots in the 2nd. The crowd of 13K felt like 20K at that point.

What else do I remember? Well, the Devils were gutless for 2 periods, and most of a third until they got some chances and drew two penalties, and capitalized. Good on Gomer to get the rebound and then to keep the momentum going and setting up Brylin for the 2nd one.

Also…the refs were just awful. They let everything go on Atlanta, but apparently “Found” some things for the Devils to wrong, including Marty, a slash after he had been knocked over? The refs in the mites game were more compitent.

Overall, good on the Devils and Brodeur (Who was easily the best player on the ice tonight) to break the Thrasher curse. And make it sweeter with Holik going to the box and us getting a goal on it.

Enjoy HDIC (Noon on CI), NBC (1:30 on NBCSports.com, 2PM on NBC), and NJ-NYI (7:30 PM)tonight. GameDay later.

So, NBC decided to amp up it’s coverage, and make it better. They decided to get more promotion (a big push during football), an outspoken new commentator (Brett Hull), a webcast pregame show (“The NHL On NBC Countdown to Faceoff” on NBCSports.com) and more teams featured (The Devils have 3 games, compared to none last season). All in all, 9 weeks of coverage branded “Game of the Week” on NBC.

Here’s the NY Area Schedule of NBC Games (i.e. the ones that will air on Channel 4).

January 13th, 2:00 P.M.
Boston Bruins vs. New York Rangers

January 28th, 3:30 P.M.
Colorado Avalanche vs. Detroit Red Wings

February 11th, 3:30 P.M.
Tampa Bay Lightning vs. New Jersey Devils

February 18th, 3:30 P.M.
Chicago Blackhawks vs. New York Rangers

March 4th, 12:30 P.M.
Philadelphia Flyers vs. Pittsburgh Penguins

March 11th, 12:30 P.M.
Carolina Hurricanes vs. New York Rangers

March 25th, 12:30 P.M.
New York Rangers vs. New York Islanders

April 1st, 12:30 P.M.
Boston Bruins vs. New Jersey Devils

April 8th, 1:00 P.M.
New York Islanders vs. New Jersey Devils

So 4 appearences from NYR, 3 from NJ, and 2 from NYI (against NYR and NJ).

Enjoy the games folks. Dave Strader, Brian Hayward and Joe Micheletti will call BOS-NYR tomorrow, and Doc Emrick, Eddie Olczyk and Pierre McGuire will call COL-DET on 1/28.

New Jersey (25-14-4, 54 PTS, 1st Atlantic Division, 3rd Eastern Conference) vs. Atlanta (24-13-8, 56 PTS, 1st Southeast Division, 2nd Eastern Conference)
The Swamp
TV: FSNY/inHD
Radio: WFAN 660

Last We Met:

They beat us. Again.

Next Meeting:

January 30th in ATL.

Leading Scorers
New Jersey
#26 Patrik Elias 16-25-41
#14 Brian Gionta 20-16-36
#9 Zach Parse 17-16-33
#23 Scott Gomez 6-27-33
#15 Jamie Langenbrunner 15-16-31

Atlanta
#18 Marian Hossa 26-32-58
#17 Ilya Kovalchuk 23-22-45
#13 Slava Kozlov 17-28-45
#9 Glen Metropolit 8-13-21
#16 Bobby Holik 8-11-9

Game Analysis:

Well, we better find a way to win this one folks. We need to start beating good teams. Hell, we need to start beating somebody other than the Islanders lately. I think we can pull it out ‘cuz I’ll be at the game in one of the corners.

Predictions: Devils 3, Thrashers 2

I am begging any Ranger fan to attempt to explain this team. How did they respond to their coach blowing a gasquet after a brutal Islander loss on home ice? By playing like a bunch of pansies for two periods and giving up the first five to Ottawa before deciding to play hockey in a 6-4 loss. Oh…and before any deranged Ranger fan blames Kevin Weekes, why don’t you take a look at the Senators fifth goal which proved to be the winner just 1:02 into the third?

I’m going to try to drive the message through now. It’s not the goalies. It’s the defense. It’s the lack of commitment on the ice by a team which never seems to be on the same page on a home ice where they have somehow won only nine of 21 games. Toss out the complementary 9-9-3 record because those extra three points are exactly that. A product of the soft ass Bettman rules. Nine wins in 21 means they have lost 12 times at MSG. That’s a joke. How can anyone take this team seriously when they can’t establish any consistency in their own home rink. This isn’t the dead swamp which has no atmosphere but somehow, their team still wins a heck of a lot more than they lose. The Garden is one of the best places to play. Period. Even with what that foolish jackass Dolan has done, it is still a compelling place. When the Knicks and Rangers are winning, few places sound louder. You’d think they’d try to take advantage of that. But instead of getting fans on their side like last year, they’ve turned the fans into silent spectators and against them.

How bad was the Ranger second period tonight? Made the lifeless effort against the Isles look like they were giving 100 percent. Could the defense just once take a man in front? Anyone? On every Senator goal, they were allowed enough room to get a quality shot off in the slot or put home a rebound. And btw…our new whipping boy Fedor Tyutin had another abysmal game. He was responsible for at least two of the goals against and finished the night a minus-three. When is it time to healthy scratch the young Russian and let him take in a game from upstairs? If it worked for Petr Prucha, why not with Tyutin? He has regressed and seems to have lost confidence.

So what to make of the comeback after Daniel Alfredsson was allowed to walk in and beat Henrik Lundqvist from the slot on Henrik’s first shot seen? I’m not sure. The most encouraging aspect of tonight’s four goal explosion in only a 7:10 span was that it wasn’t the usual suspects who did the scoring. For much of this season, this team has relied on Jaromir Jagr, Brendan Shanahan, Martin Straka and even the soft as molasses Michael Nylander to score the majority of the goals. With things going so wrong, Tom Renney switched up his lines. The moves paid off.

First, it was Prucha in front who had a Jagr shot bounce off his shoulder and in to get them on the board at 3:29. Just 45 seconds later, a routine Marek Malik point shot was redirected by Jed Ortmeyer creating a rebound in front which Jason Ward potted for his fourth to cut it to 5-2. Less than two minutes later, there was a Marcel Hossa sighting on a goal. True. He gives solid effort every night. But placed on a line with Nylander and Shanahan, Hossa put home a rebound on a delayed call for just his second tally of the season to suddenly cut it to two. Continuing to carry the play, once again it was a gritty third liner who scored 4:29 later to make it a one goal contest. Off a North American style play by Ortmeyer (a routine shot folks), the underrated Blair Betts redirected one past Ray Emery to give the Blueshirts life with 9:21 left.

And how were all four scored? All by hardworking guys who got dirty in front. That should be signal to the coach and the players that they can do the little things it takes to win. They did fall short when Dany Heatley hit the empty net with 34 ticks remaining. But at least the coach could take something out of tonight.

It’s worth noting that there was a bit of controversy regarding the confusing Delay of Game penalty rule. Ottawa defenseman Chris Phillips cleared a puck inside his zone into the other side of the stands with under 3:00 to go. By rule, any clearing attempt inside the zone which doesn’t make contact with the glass is supposed to be penalized. At first, it looked like the officials would rule that way but after a lengthy discussion, they reversed the call ticking off the Rangers. So were they wronged? Probably. But this was as confusing a play as we’ve seen. Phillips backhanded it to the other side of the ice over the glass. This wasn’t like most instances which made it tough from a refs’ vantage point to make a call. I can certainly see why they ruled what they did but also can see why Shanahan and Renney would be so hot because they worked their asses off to comeback and really could’ve used that power play to get themselves the equalizer. But by the same token, if you give up the first five, you deserve to lose. So that should be the valuable lesson from this second straight defeat.

The bigger question is did the coach learn anything from tonight? Will he put more trust in his role players after what they showed? Find out Saturday afternoon when his club hosts Boston on NBC. If they can’t respond after what transpired tonight, there really won’t be much left to say.

After suffering another crushing defeat at the hands of the Fishsticks, the Rangers (22-18-4, 48 pts) will attempt to prevent another losing streak from starting when they take on the Ottawa Senators. The Sens (24-19-2, 50 pts) enter play having won three of four. Aside from a 3-2 home loss to New Jersey this past Saturday, Ottawa has gotten at least a point in eight of their last nine posting a 7-1-1 record to move up to fifth overall in the East. Tied with Carolina in points, they own the tiebreaker due to one more win.

For the Blueshirts, it’s an opportunity to tie Ottawa in a tight Eastern Conference playoff race. How will they respond to Tom Renney’s heated criticism from the other night? Will they fall back into the doldrums or “circle the wagons,” a favorite expression of the coach?

It will be interesting to see and once again we’ll be in attendance hoping for a better result. Can they deal with Chris Neil’s physicality? Who knows? The bottom line right now is coming away with the two points because it’s so important at this stage of the season. With 14 of the 15 teams in the conference still realistically alive, getting as many points as you can is a must. To show you how much parity there is, only 12 points separate fourth ranked Montreal (53 points) from 14th seeded Florida (41 points). And with some teams holding games at hand on the Rangers, they can’t afford another slip up like the seven-game December skid.

Season Series: The teams split the first two games at Scotiabank Place with the Rangers taking the first game 3-1 on December 9 thanks to splendid goaltending from Henrik Lundqvist. But two weeks ago, it was the other No.1 goalie Ray Emery who made the big stops in posting a 1-0 shutout December 29 to make captain Daniel Alfredsson’s deflection goal in the opening minute stand up and extend the Rangers’ losing streak to seven. Now the series shifts to MSG where they’ll try to get back on the winning track and improve their mediocre 9-8-3 home record tonight. The final match-up will take place at the Garden on March 13th.

Series History: Overall, the Rangers are 41-30-12-1 against Ottawa and enter tonight with a 19-17-5-0 edge on home ice.

Final thoughts include a mention of a Larry Brooks column in which the ornery NY Post beat writer took the team to task for unloading the underrated Dominic Moore in the offseason for Adam Hall. Hall (4-7-11, -13) has failed to distinguish himself while Moore (5-6-11, +1) has fit in much better with the rebuilding Pens centering their third line. Sure, the production is similar but Moore brought an element centering last year’s popular HMO line that this team lacks. Brooks also references some other Renney quotes from this season where he was disappointed with the club’s effort along with the lack of production from the third and fourth lines:

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01112007/sports/rangers/renney_venom_more_of_same_rangers_larry_brooks.htm

My other thought regards the mishandling of Jarkko Immonen. Clearly, he is an NHL ready player who won’t benefit from being sent back to Hartford. Why this Finn who will turn 25 in April can’t be part of the solution is beyond explanation. In 11 games, he has more points (1-3-4) than Marcel Hossa (1-2-3) or Ryan Hollweg do. Immonen has two-way ability and size. He also can win faceoffs. If this team was serious about balancing out their scoring, he would center either the second or third line. Blair Betts (5-1-6) is a hard worker and never takes shifts off but the club would be better served if he anchored the fourth line. How would I construct the lines? Here’s a sampling:

Straka-Nylander-Jagr
Prucha-Immonen-Shanahan
Ward-Cullen-Hossa
Hollweg-Betts-Ortmeyer

Sit Hall out a couple of games. He should be more productive. If they did it this way, it would balance out the center slot and make it easier to roll four lines. Plus the fourth line would be a hardworking grind line that can provide some of that missing energy Brooks and Ranger supporters are looking for. Cullen is a third center playing No.2 right now. Trying Immonen with Prucha and Shanny wouldn’t be a bad move. Too bad the organization doesn’t have a clue.

While I am on the topic of disappointments, both Fedor Tyutin and Aaron Ward haven’t been pulling their weight. They once looked like a solid pair but not for quite a while. If these two don’t get their act together soon, it won’t be the usual whipping boys such as Marek Malik and Karel Rachunek which will be drawing the ire of fans. Tyutin should be better than he is by now and Ward has been inconsistent. They must raise their level.

Last night’s show was lots of fun to take part in as Gary and myself were joined by the always entertaining Patrick Hickey, who added the element of surprise to a heated program which featured discussion of the latest Isles’ win over the Rangers along with breakdown of Martin Brodeur’s run at the Hart Trophy and All Star debate:

http://www.broadcastmonsters.com/NewyorkHockey/nyhockey011007.asx

You can also get the podcast over at our official NY Hockey Report site:

http://www.nyhockeyreport.com