After 1, all tied at 0

Here are some choice notes from the first period:

• Penguins are flying out of the gate getting the first 8 shots
• Rangers balance it out with a PP
• Drury-Betts-Callahan best line half way through
• Gomez centering Sjostrom and Prucha for a shift
• Drury is still the man; great on the 4-on-3 Penalty Kill
• Jagr tells Crosby to stand up and stop falling down after Tyutin threw him down
• NBC has replayed Tyutin’s interference penalty on Crosby about 5 times since it happened about 10 minutes ago. No one was arguing it.  But 3 of the 4 commentators seem to think someone is.  Surprisingly, Millbury is the only one not getting involved.
• Lots of former Rangers and Penguins playing in this series
  • On the Rangers now:
    • Jaromir Jagr
    • Martin Straka
    • Michal Rozsival
  • On the Penguins now:
    • Petr Sykora
    • Adam Hall
    • Pascal Dupuis
• Avery gets away with a slash on the hand of Crosby.
• All of the Penalties that have been called so far have been the right call.
• As expected, Penguins fans have been taunting Jagr throughout the game.

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Rangers Hit’em Where it Hurts

Maybe the defense was asleep. Maybe the refs forgot the rules of hockey. Maybe Christian Backman got 10 penalty minutes (6 officially but it was him that made Cole’s face bleed, not Marc Staal. See second “maybe.”).

But does that really matter? Henrik played pretty well and Malik of all people had a sound game. He threw at least TWO HITS! And, oh yeah, we won!
The young’uns again showed us why they are still playing in the big leagues. Dubinsky completely fooled Ward with a beautiful deke to his backhand that he buried top shelf (Props to Jagr for the steal and the blind drop pass to set the whole thing up). Callahan stood up for himself by fighting Conboy. Dawes looked like he knew where everyone was on the ice at all times. Especially when he set up Shanny for the go-ahead-by-two goal.

***

Fredrik Sjostrom and Christian Backman played their first games as Rangers last night. Sjostrom played on the fourth line with Betts and Hollweg and played very well. He even made a nice drive to the net that needed a fair bit of effort on the part of Cam Ward.

Backman played alright except that he took quite a few penalties. He was the cause of 10 penalty minutes even though he was only charged with 6.

Now this doesn’t mean that I’m throwing him under the bus. I’m just waiting to see him play a few more games. For all we know, he was a nervous wreck last night. Hell, I would’ve been.

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Rangers @ Hurricanes – Game Preview

After a three day break, the Rangers get back to work tonight in Carolina. The Hurricanes are playing pretty well going 7-2-1 in their last 10 and 3-1-1 in their last 5.

Two of the four newest Rangers will be in the lineup tonight. Fredrik Sjostrom will take Colton Orr’s (chest pain) place on the 4th line and Christian Backman will skate in Paul Mara’s (head) place next to Marc Staal.

The last two times the Rangers have had a long break, the first team they played after was the Sabres. The Rangers won both games (5-1 and 4-3). Before that, their last long break came during the All-Star break. They played the Hurricanes and lost 3-1. The Rangers are 6-2-2 in their last 10 and 4-0-1 in their last 5 with that “one” being the game against Montreal.

The lineup should look something like this:

Avery-Dubinsky-Jagr

Dawes-Gomez-Shanahan

Straka-Drury-Callahan

Hollweg-Betts-Sjostrom

Rozsival-Malik

Tyutin-Girardi

Staal-Backman

Lundqvist

Petr Prucha is “good to go” but coach Tom Renney says, “we want to give our new guys a chance to play.”

Maybe Sunday against Philly?

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Some notes

Lundqvist, Backman, Sjostrom, oh my!

Or as Jagr joked, “Swedes everywhere.” As the Rangers get ready for their first game without Malik Jagr Mara Prucha Hossa, we find out that two of the recent acquisitions may very well be playing tomorrow in Carolina. According to Sam Weinman at Rangers Report, Christian Backman skated with Marc Staal (replacing the injured Mara) and Fredrik Sjostrom was skating in place of Colton Orr on the fourth line.

Don’t worry Jagr, Czechs still outnumber Swedes five to three.

Beat Writers boycott Avery?

Recently, Sean Avery has been avoiding the press. Not just avoiding, but making an art of it. At one point he claimed to have laryngitis. Magical laryngitis that disappeared when he hit the ice but reappeared when reporters got near him.

Today during practice, he skated over to the corner of the rink where the writers were stationed. He pointed to John Dellapina of the Daily News, asking him if he wanted to talk saying, “We’ll do a rotation. One guy a week.” Dellapina declined so Avery turned to Weinman saying, “OK, what do you want to ask me? Is there really anything earth-shattering you need to know?” Weinman also declined.

Tired of waiting his turn, Steve Zipay from Newsday asked, “Is there a reason you haven’t talked for three weeks?”

“No comment.”

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Trade Deadline – Biggest Winner, Biggest Loser

Pittsburgh = Scary

Not only do they get Marian Hossa and Pascal Dupuis to plug into their already dangerous offense, they go out and get Hal Gill to solidify their D. Uh oh. Now they’ve got a line with Crosby and Hossa, a line with Malkin and Malone, and they’ve got Jordan Staal to fill in on the wing. Then, you add Gill, who has the ability to shut down opposing teams’ top forwards. I believe Jagr once called Hal Gill the best Defenseman in the world. This team is going to be really good scary.

Montreal = North of the Border-line retarded?

I really don’t get this move. Montreal unloads their #1 goalie, Cristobal Huet, to the Capitals for a 2nd round pick. What? Somebody please explain this move to me. Where is the sense? Huet has been a solid backstop all year, and management up in Montreal has to think they have a chance at a Cup run. Why get rid of your #1 netminder? I understand that Carey Price is the goalie of the future, but he hasn’t exactly been a brick wall this year, and he is definitely untested. Unless they plan on scoring 4 goals a game, I could see them going out in the 1^st round.

 

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Welcome to 5-hole!

We’re going to be talking about all things hockey, but especially the New York Rangers. Check back here in the future for news, game previews, and hard-hitting analysis.

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