Yahoo! Sports brought the tie back!

We won people!  We got rid of the skills competition!

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OMG! Sidney Crosby came to town!

Yes, Sid the Kid graced us with his presence and Marc Staal and Colton Orr showed him to his seat.  If you’re looking for analysis of the game as a whole, Jen C. over at Rangerland.net described it best.

Every time two good teams get together, no one team dominates. One might dominate for a period of time and the other will dominate for other times during the course of the game. And there will be times that the game is even.

And I think we saw that for the most part Wednesday night. The Penguins had their moments of dominating play, and the Rangers had theirs. It was a back-and-forth game, and I thought overall it was a good game.

That is exactly how that game played out.  The Rangers, of course, came tumbling out of the gate (as they have been doing for a while now) and didn’t show anything good until early in the second.  Even when the Penguins went up by 2, the Rangers came roaring back and scored just 1:21 later to keep them in it.  And tied it late in the third to force OT.

Whether or not the Penguins sat back on their lead and let up on offense, the Rangers didn’t quit and that has been a common theme throughout the season.  In previous seasons, if the Rangers were trailing heading into the third period, it would seem as if they just gave up on the game.  This season, I actually have confidence that they can claw themselves out of the hole and dominate late in the games.

Some notes:

• It was amazing how well Colton Orr distracted Sidney Crosby from playing his game.  Crosby was so worked up at one point that after getting hit by Orr along the boards in the first period, he grabbed Orr’s jersey with no penalty called there (surprise, surprise) and yapped at him until Orpik came and got called for two penalties against Orr.  Crosby and Michel Therrien were even yelling at Orr from the bench until Don “Have Another Doughnut” Koharski settled them down.
• Orr did so much last night but only had 4:56 of icetime?  That can’t be right.
• Dmitri Kalinin should be embarrassed at how easily Sidney Crosby took the puck from him right before the Penguins first goal.  Crosby gave Kalinin no respect and frankly, why should he?  Crosby knew how easy it would be to overpower Kalinin and it paid off.
• In a combined 46:12 of icetime, Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin were held to 1 assist and 5 shots on goal.
• Petr Prucha looked like he was everywhere on the ice with only 13:10 of icetime.  He came through in a big way by burrying that bounce off the boards.  That was a typical Petr Prucha goal.  Now put him on the PP to clean up the rebounds from Drury’s shots.
• Oh yeah.  I liked having Drury at the point during the power play in the second period.  He was ripping shots like there was no tomorrow.
• I’m glad the refs decided to swallow their whistles in the 3rd.  It gave the game some flow and made it much more intense and physical.  It almost felt like a playoff game.
• PRUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU

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5-hole.com Pick ‘em – Free speech sold separately – 12/3/08

The first day of 5-hole.com Pick ‘em seems to have been a rousing success!  The standings to the right will be updated daily and we will now offer a handful of what we feel are the most interesting stories from around the league.  Additionally, we will now give you all a reason for why we picked the teams we’ve picked.  You know, in case we are your main source before heading to the bookie.

• Sean Avery has been suspended indefinitely after sharing his thoughts with the Canadian media. “I just want to comment on how it’s become like a common thing in the NHL for guys to fall in love with my sloppy seconds. I don’t know what that’s about. Enjoy the game tonight.” Come on, that’s funny!
• Speaking of Avery, M Hurley over at My Blueshirt Heaven calls out the NHL or National Hypocrites League for their reaction to the situation. “This is the same league that has let a criminal like Todd Bertuzzi play again after he criminally assaulted and ended the career of Steve Moore.”
• The All Star voting is still a joke, but at least Jarome Iginla has broken the Red Wings hold on the West.  In the East, Sidney Crosby is now only 40,000 votes behind Alex Tanguay for a spot on the starting lineup.

We’ll get into our picks for tonight after the jump…

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Someone at Yahoo! Sports Has a Good Sense of Humor

Over at Yahoo! Sports, every player and many former players have profiles.  Each player has a number and that number is part of the link to their profile.  For example, the link to Wayne Gretzky’s profile is http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/1.  How obvious.

I’m bored at work so I have been putting in random numbers and searching for specific players.  Here’s a few:

• Marc Messier is #10
• Mario Lemieux is #66
• Jaromir Jagr is #35
• Mike Richter is #433
• There are 3998 player profiles with the 3998th player being Chris Stewart, the 18th overall pick of the 2006 Draft.

After putting in a bunch of random numbers I decided to pick a specific number.  Being Halloween, what better number than 666?  Of all of the players in the NHL, who could Yahoo! have given the number 666?  None other than Miroslav Satan.

While it seems that some players were given numbers for a reason (Gretzky, Lemieux), is it possible that this is just a coincidense?  I hope not.

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My UFA wish list

After taking a very brief look at who is going to be available, I’ve come up with a preliminary list of a few players I’d like to see wearing a Rangers jersey next season.

Ryan Malone, LW, Pit
The 6’4″, 225 lb. winger would add much needed size and skill to the Rangers front lines. The fast and powerful forward would make a great complement to the quick and shifty Scott Gomez. Malone, who racked up 103 PIM this season, would also add some toughness to the Rangers. Malone is 28 years old, and recorded 27 goals and 24 assists this season. Current salary: $1.45 mil

Kristian Huselius, LW, Cal
Huselius is a fast skater with a scorer’s touch. He had 25 goals this season to go with 41 assists. He plays fearlessly on the boards, which when combined with his quickness, makes him a very dangerous forechecker. I would love to see the 29-year-old Huselius on a line with Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan. Current salary: $1.4 mil

John Michael-Liles, D, Col
The Rangers have had their sights set on this 27-year-old Defenseman for some time. It was rumored they were trying to acquire him at this season’s trade deadline but the price was too steep. Now that he will be an Unrestricted Free Agent, I expect Sather to go after him. At 5’10″ 185 lbs., he is smaller than your prototypical NHL defenseman, but he could be the power play quarterback the Rangers so desperately need. The offensive defenseman had 6 goals and 26 assists this season. Current salary: $1.4 mil

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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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Chris Drury is the man

clutch, as usual.

See?

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OMG OMG OMG

The Penguins just lost in regulation.  That means the Rangers are only 4 POINTS OUT OF FIRST PLACE IN THE EASTERN CONFERENCE with a game in hand!

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