They basically wasted half the game being subtle. I was surprised at how calm Torts looked through that long stretch of nothingness, until they started to actually play hockey for the last half of the third.
I was mostly very pleasantly surprised by the defense tonight. Never a huge Rozsival fan, but still wondered how it would look without him. There were a few stretches of puck on a string by Les Habitants, but the D is looking okay, really. The forwards as a whole were kind of sketchy in their effort tonight.
The Good: Henrik, Zucc, Gilroy, Anisimov, Wolski, and Avery, to an extent
The Bad: No one in particular was very poor.
The Redden: No one was this awful tonight.
The good: The interested Wolski showing up, the Gaborik/Anisimov/Wolski line, Sean Avery, Brandon Dubinsky, Mats Zuccarello, and I thought Steve Eminger played a strong game, despite being on for both goals.
The bad. The power play, though they only had 2:08 of time. Stepan had a tough game too.
The Redden: Pouliot's goal. The power play gets nominated for both bad and ugly from me.
The entire Dubi line stands out in this game (well, maybe not Stepan, he had a rough game). The POTG stood between Dubinsky and Lundqvist in my eyes. Wolski looked slick out there, but the "just traded" energizement is expected. Let's see how he looks after 10 games.
The Redden goes to Chris Lee and the blind mice, for having laughable double standards as to what is a penalty at one end of the rink and not at the other, which probably didn't matter anyway, as our brutal PP is the other Redden nomination. That the sob Subban is unpenalized for his dirty slewfoot is unfathomable, especially considering what they considered a penalty on Girardi. How did the logic go through their heads here? That Dubinsky was equally as guilty for a "tangle up", when he has both hands on his stick and is the puckholder? That Subban shouldn't be penalized, as both of them fell? I would love to see a judo referee not award points from throws if both combatants drop to the mat. Maybe it should've been a small hint to Lee and the blind mice that what Subban did wasn't hockey? It can't become a more blatant, open slewfoot than that.
Our inability to play solid hockey at home is also disturbing.
Dubinsky hands down , effort , intensity also Zucca. The bad Drury , my god can't outrace Hal "construction cone" Gill. The Redden -Stepan totally lost on the point on the PP & generally confused.
I think overall Lundqvist played a great game and think that if anyone on this team deserves to be cut some slack it is him - but "perfect shot" or not that was a ****** goal. You just can't let in a short-side, almost parallel to the goal line, shot like that - period.
And no I would not be praising Pouliot for it either. That was a goal that should never go in.
__________________
"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
NEW YORK – Eight hours before tonight’s Original Six matchup between the Montreal Canadiens and the New York Rangers, Wojtek Wolski finally arrived in New York after being traded from Phoenix yesterday afternoon for defenseman Michal Rozsival. He was only about 12 hours late.
His flight yesterday from St. Louis got cancelled due to the same weather system now blanketing the New York City area under a foot of snow, forcing him to fly this morning.
After arriving at Westchester Airport at 11 a.m., and a quick trip to the Rangers practice facility in Greenburgh, Wolski didn’t arrive at his hotel until 2 p.m.. After a quick nap, Wolski walked into Madison Square Garden in time to talk to the media around 4:45 p.m., and put his new Rangers jersey on for the first time.
The Good: I really liked Zuccs play, as well as being pleasantly surprised that Wolski was able to seemingly click into that line right away and get a few good chances. I'll chalk his not burying something last night up to him having a rough day getting to the game at all. Lundy played a good solid game, and let in a shot that while yes, it was his fault, he played in an effective manner and 9 out of 10 times, would have made a save on. It was a hell of a shot by Pouliot. But any respect I would have had for Pouliot went out the window when I read this,
Quote:
Lundqvist said that was the more frustrating of the two goals he allowed - after he was knocked on his rear end and pushed into his net on Jaroslav Spacek’s goal, a goal that Pouliot admitted to NHL.com after the game that he had pushed in with his glove.
The Bad: Drury and Stepan. I know Steps likely just had a really off night, and couldn't stay on his feet. But Drury was abysmal, mishandling passes, and just not having the push to race for the puck. (Hal ****ing Gill, Really?)
The Redden: Those refs were abysmal, and couldn't make a correct call in that game to save their lives. Subban as well, I've heard how much of a ***** he is, but all I expected was Avery levels of annoyance, this guy is on a completely different level.
Last edited by Thumpz: 01-12-2011 at 09:45 AM.
Reason: Added quote
Good:
I though Duby and Avery both played excellent games last night.
Also it seems like Gilroy is playing with a lot of confidence right now.
Bad:
It really seemed to me that Stepan was fightin it last night. He just seemed uncomfortable and he struggled.
Torts, For not moving Avery off the fourth line last night. He was playing very well and deserved some ice time with other guys who have the ability to pass and score. In continuation of this thought, too much time for Drury and Weise
Tough to put Hank in the bad, cause he really made some big/great saves to keep the game tied for a long time. But the softie was a bad one and for a team that sometimes has trouble scoring goal it was a killer.
