I'm perfectly fine with dropping a game now and again if it means that Hank is fully rested for the playoffs. Home ice advantage is a great thing to have, but President's Trophy winners are 7 - 19 in the Stanley Cup finals.
Aside from the first 10 min they played a pretty good game, certainly good enough to win. And if we had a competent PP there would be no doubt.
That aside the first 10 min was the worst hockey we have played all year; how do you come out that flat against that talented of a team that you KNOW has a chip on their shoulder?
Lastly, Richards played a good game.
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"Here we can see the agression of american people. They love fighting and guns. when they wont win they try to kill us all." -HalfOfFame
I swear we could be 54-0, this being our first loss, and the naysayers and complainers would come out of the woodwork to find something to complain about.
People will always find something, or someone, to ***** about. We had a bad period but played well the rest of the game. Biron had 3 breakaways and the defense was porous, its his fault. The entire team sucked offensively yet it's Richards' fault.
It was a blip in the radar. They didn't come out prepared but they bounced back nicely. Just step away from the ledge and put things in perspective. We're still 8 points ahead of Philly and they only have one game in hand. You can't win them all.
Either way my point stands: we are in a pretty comfortable place right now. Yes, even we are allowed to lose a game here or there. I'm more impressed that the team was able to battle back and at least attempted to make a game of it.
We definitely still need another scorer before I think we're legit but with a competent power play we could have won this game.
Seriously who says Hank would have won this game? What if he didn't? Then everyone would kill Torts for not giving him a rest.
I just came home, I didn't see the goals before. Every goal except for the 2nd maybe, because it was a screen, was weak. Hank would have stopped 3 or 4 of those goals. Don't give me this, they were breakaways. What do you say about a goalie that goes 0 for 3 in a shootout? Even 1 for 3 is pretty bad. It's not like these breakaway shots were great shots or dekes. We have a great chance to win this with Lundqvist in net.
That said, when it was 4-0, I thought we'd lose this 6-0 at best. I figured if we lose this game something like 4-1, I wouldn't be too upset. So we lost 4-2 and I'm not too upset. I'm happy we didn't allow 5 for a 56th straight game this season.
P.S. I just saw Cally should have had a goal, the Rangers got hosed.
Either way my point stands: we are in a pretty comfortable place right now. Yes, even we are allowed to lose a game here or there. I'm more impressed that the team was able to battle back and at least attempted to make a game of it.
We definitely still need another scorer before I think we're legit but with a competent power play we could have won this game.
I doubt that point is lost on anyone. It's an emotional game with emotional fans. Maybe in some ideal world it takes 15-20 losses before one would deign to blink at it. But as far as I know, there are no Vulcans on this board. Whether it's a single loss or 10...no one likes it. And some are more vocal/expressive about that than others. Look on the bright side, this board probably saved someone a beating at the hands of a disgruntled Rangers fan
I really don't care how many people wanna blame the defense in the 1st or Biron in the 1st for that matter, there is only one thing that lost this game...
The Powerplay (or lack thereof)
Great teams go down 4-0 and have the ability to come back. The Rangers had SEVEN count them 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7....chances to come back. Their anemic PP didn't score one goal...hell...they didn't have one quality chance on the PP.
How often does a team come back from a 4-0 defecit? A couple of times this season? Bottom line with Hank, PP or no PP would have probably gotten at least a point.
Rangers D,if you want to call it that,really hung Biron out to dry.he actually didnt play bad,look at the chances the Hawks scored on.2 breakaways,a penalty shot and a point shot with king kong screening him.
I doubt that point is lost on anyone. It's an emotional game with emotional fans. Maybe in some ideal world it takes 15-20 losses before one would deign to blink at it. But as far as I know, there are no Vulcans on this board. Whether it's a single loss or 10...no one likes it. And some are more vocal/expressive about that than others. Look on the bright side, this board probably saved someone a beating at the hands of a disgruntled Rangers fan
It's perfectly alright to be upset with this loss, but at the same time this loss needs to be put into perspective. We are still in a good position in the standings and I'm not worried about the teams around us yet.
To start tweaking out and ripping our players for being terrible and not having a place on the team is the point at which the anger is a little overboard.
Pessimists look for every conceivable opportunity to pounce imaginable. They'll crawl back into the woodwork when the team is playing well again. How can that bee deemed a fan is a different topic for a different day.
Rangers D,if you want to call it that,really hung Biron out to dry.he actually didnt play bad,look at the chances the Hawks scored on.2 breakaways,a penalty shot and a point shot with king kong screening him.
It was a mix. His five hole was a big problem. They were aiming at it all night. The D did him no favors, but Biron did not start well either. However, he didn't tighten it up after that so I will give him props for that.
