A Turnaround: Rangers 4, Montreal 1
The positives:
Losing streak over---with an apostrophe.
The PK: Eight power plays for the best team in the league with a man advantage and one goal. Two shots allowed in 2:44 of 5-on-3. Drury, Malik, Rozsival excelled. Staal was a plus-3.
Lundqvist: Focused and aggressive
Drury: His best all-around game in weeks.
Dawes: Goal and beautiful assist.
Prucha: Goal and assist .
Malik: After three scratches, a key on D.
Assorted quotes:
Tom Renney: "I thought each line went out tonight and played with a purpose...we competed hard and wanted it badly."
Scott Gomez: "It's a credit to the penalty killers but it's one area of the game that we need to watch. We played a great 60 minutes. It's the halfway point now, and if we go like that every night, we're going to give ourselves a chance."
Nigel Dawes: "Even in the last game, Dubinsky, Prucha and I, we had our opportunities. We just knew we had to keep gettings pucks deep and keep getting in on the cycling. We're going to get our chances and eventually it will pay off."
Chris Drury: "We were certainly more focused and more determined and it showed right from the start. It was a great pass from Hossa (on his goal). It shows what we can do when we're focused and disciplined and play as a team. We do know it's there, we just have to be more consistent with it."
Garden chairman Jim Dolan was in attendance (taking his mind off Knix probably) and congratulated the team in the happy post-game locker room.
Like him, you should enjoy. But don't get too excited. Still in ninth place. The Pens in the Igloo await Monday. More tomorrow...
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Comments (24)
Last year it was Girardi, Callahan and Avery that changed the fortunes of the Rangers, this year it just might be Dawes, Dubi and Prucha.
Steve, How'd you like the crowd? Felt like a playoff game against a team who's not even a rival.
Nice win....with shanny and avery close to returning here is what i would like to see......Avery and Shanny go back on the wings of Drury and have Moore replace Hollweg on the 4th line.
Still think we need a shutdown d-man and would look to shop and combination of Malek, Hossa, Callahan and Montoya.
Any thoughts on what it would take to get Redden?
Steve, when you told me at the Garden before the game about the defensive shuffling, we both agreed it wasn't a very good idea. Well, I have to admit now that I liked what I saw, espcially from the Girardi-Staal combo. Malik was actually pretty good too.
Scoring was balanced. However, they took too many penalties, which cost them the shutout.
The officiating was also very poor tonight. One ref blew the call on the Prucha goal... there were a few penalties that should have been called against the Habs but weren't, especially one where Straka was hooked near the end of the second period... there were hand passes on both sides that were not called.
All in all, a good win, but just a beginning. Now they have to focus on doing the same thing in the next game. See you Wednesday.
Dawes and Moore deserve to stay in there. How about Shanny/Drury/Moore and on the 4th line Avery/Betts/Orr. Keep Dubi's line and Gomez's line the same. Take Hossa and Hollweg out of the lineup.
After Wednesday's game we will see where this team stands. Pens are hot right now so Monday is a big game. If you have been watching all year you will notice how Duby is playing with more confidence now with Prucha and Dawes.
Nigel when given ice time is a solid winger who can score 20 goals a year. Great wrist shot on his goal.
The two camps thing was true
http://rangerjoe7.wordpress.com/
allegedly were going after CuJo
http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/news_story/?ID=227157&hubname=nhl
Why do you guys continue to waste the effort calling for Hollweg or Orr to be scratched?
It is so stupid it's beyond words.
RENNEY LOVES HIS 4TH LINE!!!
OMG, stop writing it.
Bob and Lennynyr, you are both so dumb you have to be the same person.
I thought he played very well last night, especially penalty killing why take him out of the lineup?
Rangers should let Jagr ride off in the sunset this summer and sign Marian Hossa, hanging on to his brother would certainly help that happen.
Certainly all is not well with 1 win. Malik is so bad that he goes one game without putting the puck in his own net and he gets credit for a good game. Please! He was like a statue on the Habs PP goal. Good effort from top to bottom. Lets hope they keep it up. FIRE RENNEY!
Only Dolan would congatulate a team like this after one good win. Long way to go there Jim. Go soak your head.
Kocur,
Lets hope they keep it up, and fire Renney.
Think about how stupid that sounds.
I guess we can't fire Renney and still win? All is forgoten cause they won one game. Renney is a terrible coach and ignoring that will only make things worse in the long run. I love all this "either you love everyone on the team or you're not a true fan' BS. This team STILL has alot of holes and I'll keep pointing them out untill they fix them. The holes in the team are magnified when they lose and they don't disapear when we win.
Kocur,
The only way Renney will be fired is if they continue to LOSE.
You can keep pointing things out on a Newsday blog, but no matter what you say, your impact will be pretty minimal considering nothing said on a pointless hockey blog ha anything to do with what happens in the Rangers front office.
Bob,
your dumbness never fails to shine.
Marian Hossa is one of the best players in the league, the point was to use the fact that his brother is here as an additional enticement to sign here.
Please tell me if you need further clarification on that point.
At the end of the season, the Rangers have the following players who are UFA's and count against the cap:
AVERY, SEAN
FRITZ, MITCHELL
HUTCHINSON, ANDREW
KASPARAITIS, DARIUS
MALIK, MAREK
MARA, PAUL
ROZSIVAL, MICHAL
SHANAHAN, BRENDAN
STRAKA, MARTIN
STRUDWICK, JASON
VALIQUETTE, STEPHEN
They total $20.7M against the cap. If they drop Jagr, add another 4.9M to that figure. Start from there and see what the market contains. Have to consider, not on the above list, about $7M for Lundqvist and if any of the RFA's have an offer sheet extended to them, depending on who they are, will have to match. The RFA's are, besides Lundqvist, are Tyutin, Montoya, Jessiman, Hossa, Moore, Graham, Girardi, Parenteau, Holt, Kozak, Liffiton, Baranka and Dawes.
The one's on that list I am concerned about are Tyutin, Girardi, Montoya, Moore and Baranka. They will get raises I'm sure.
Cherepanov and Suignetti have a shot making the team next season besides the present prospects in the mix but it will have to be guesswork by the Rangers to see who they think will and pick UFA's on that basis.
So, subtracting HL's guess at 7M, that still leaves 17M (22M if Jagr is gone). As someone has already said, should be an interesting upcoming season
I know they won't fire Renney. I certainly don't think my pointing things out on a blog is going to get any results with the Rangers. I would have to be pretty Fing stupid to think that now would'nt I Hossa? For me, like most people this is just killing time talking about our team.
he can command 6-7 million for sure
were still looking at the jackets
http://rangerjoe7.wordpress.com/
Bob, not sure who counts against the cap. Got the list from a website.
http://www.nhlscap.com/salarynumbers/newyorkrangers.htm
As far as HL getting 7M, your guess is as good as mine. If he played all season like he had the first 20 games, I'd call it a deal but now???
It's Sather's move and he doesn't seem to be in too much of a hurry!
Here is some good discussion on Klesla...including some discussion on Foote. Sounds like most of the Columbus fans feel that Klesla is a bust...
http://hfboards.com/showthread.php?p=11548020
Lets not get ahead of ourselves folks... this was a VERY lucky win. Monteal looked tired and that PP didn't click. We gave them way too many opportunities and although some of our guys played well tonight all is not right yet in Rangerland... I still say keep Renny and even stop talking about it... Rip the "C" off of Jagr's shoulder and give it to captain Chris... If this game went the other way we would be discussing 2 penalties by Stahl in the first period... the kid has to settle down...I don't think playing with Giradi is the right thing... I liked him with Rosie the best since it makes him think defence first...Yeh to Prucha... simply put good solid game and I liked the way he came to his teammates aid in a scrum on the sideboards I believe in the 3rd. Even though Dubi can handle himself Prucha was right there pushing and shoving... great work...
Lastly thought Moore was good... just want to see moore from him pardon the pun...
Don't know anything about Ivan, bob. I will get a look at him on the 23.