The Rangers lost last night and have lost 7 game this year overall and 1 in overtime. They sit at their .500 record and haven't started off great like many fans wanted after their huge offseason acquistions, which in all honesty had me saying man I can't wait to see that Stanley Cup in the garden. The good news however that the Rangers are tied for third place in the division and still only 1 point behind the Islanders/Flyers for the division lead in the Atlantic which is slowly turning into the Southeast of the pre-lockout era. By that I mean 1 team escapes while all the others didn't even deserve to get a shot at the 8th seed, and to be honest niether did the winner. The division leader in this division has the second lowest point total in the league (second only to the southwest) whose leader San Jose has 15 points. The team in the atlantic are separated by only 4 points top to bottom if Jersey puts a streak together tomorrow the Devils can be in first and the Rangers be in last. Not to say that will happen or not but the fact of the matter is right now the division lead holds the key to a 3 seed. With another game tomorrow night against the Pens if the Rangers can find a way to score some goals and keep the Penguins off the board or real close too it, we can get this thing back on track and take first place. Of course thats assuming the Islanders and the Flyers don't play until friday (which I do not know and seems like a lot of research for this early in the morning).
All in all it wasn't that great of a game last night to be honest. Staal looked good again. For the most part though the Rangers are still making dumb passes that are telegraphed. Watching the game over 5 hours away I know where most if not all of their passes are going, which is stopping them in their tracks. The Avery turn over when Jagr was about to skate behind him was awful and lead to a chance. The thing the bothers me the most is the predictability in the offensive zone, the Rangers are constantly passing to the guy that is about to be covered or have looked him down long enough for a defenseman to step in the way of the pass at transition the puck. Passes are on the ice to the first person that they see, they don't look around and it seems like only 2 people are attacking at any time, which limits the options even more. I don't know I just don't know. They are trying to keep it simple in the zone shoot and crash the net only they are keeping it too simple with the passes sometimes which makes it easy to stop the rush.
On a side note Paul Mara looked great last night. He really did earn his paycheck last night with that sneaky goal and some of the net crashing he did mid to late in the game which was Brian Leetch like. Leetch was a sneaky player too (6'0" 190), and much smaller which is why I was surprised that Mara could do that with his 6'4" 220 frame.
Anyway thats all for today. Get it back together team tomorrow for a trip back home to the Garden.
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