Subtract one superstar in Sidney Crosby, add one (ok, maybe two) period of excellent team defense, three periods of a stellar Henrik Lundquist, Sean Avery and Brandon Dubinsky and the total is: A convincing 5-2 Rangers win, 2 points in the standings and a bit of a reprieve from their recent futile Florida trip.
After a 1st period of more free handouts than your local soup kitchen, Coach Tom Renney called a time-out 3 minutes and two quick Penguin goals into the 2nd period, settled down the troops and the Rangers responded almost immediately. Less than a minute later, after strong forecheck pressure and hard hitting from Colton Orr and Blair Betts, 4th line forward Fredrik Sjostrom intercepted a pass in the slot, faked Pens goalie Ty Conklin right, then popped a shot past Conklin's stick to give the Rangers a 3-2 lead they would never relinquish.
Sean Avery potted 2 goals and was all over Conklin most of the evening. A "re-sign Avery" chant went up in the Garden after Avery's 2nd goal; if Sather lets this guy get away, it will be the worst move he has made as Rangers GM. One question: Why was Avery wearing a black knit hat during the post-game interview? Did he get a bad sunburn in Florida or a butcher shop haircut?
Martin Straka added a goal in the 3rd and played a strong north-south game, which as most of you Rangers fans know, is not something we've seen alot of this season. I actually saw Straka dump the puck in behind Conklin on at least two occasions when he couldn't stickhandle past the Penguins defense or attempt an ill-advised cross-ice pass. Yes, miracles can happen.
Brandon Dubinsky is turning into a monster on Broadway. He hits everything that moves and hits hard. He's shown a good scoring touch, a nose for the puck, surprising speed and has a goal-scorers' hands. In years past, we would have watched regretfully watched Dubinsky perform like this for another team, as he most likely would have been shipped off for a high-priced vet at the trading deadline. Thank god for the salary cap.
New York travels to New Jersey to meet up with the 1st place Devils Wednesday night against whom the Rangers are an astonishing 5-0 so far this season. The Rangers seem to have the Devils number in '07-'08 as Renney's defensive system, when played correctly, matches up well against a NJ team that plays a defense-first game. Here's to the Rangers balanced scoring attack outdueling Jersey's one dimensional offense.
Posting has been very light while I'm down here in PSL. The internet connection I'm on is excruciatingly slow and with the kids around all day, its hard to get any free time. Nighttime comes and I'm usually too wiped to be sitting in front of my laptop. It's hot, I'm distracted and uncomfortable at the desk I'm using. /excuses off
Of course, if a better synopsis of the game is warranted (trust me, it is), then stop by Hockey Rodent; you can't get any better than that. HR now has the Rangers at a 95.3% chance of making the playoffs via his Berth-o-Meter, in case anyone is interested.
Forgot to mention this milestone last night: Henrik Lundquist reached 100 wins in his short NHL career. In the process, Lundquist broke the Rangers record of fastest to 100 wins, which was held by Mike Richter who reached 100 wins in 198 games. Henrik accomplished the same feat in only 187 games. This is just one of many Ranger records soon to be broken and owned by The King.
A few new '08 spring training pics up, more to come...
Update: There seems to be a problem with IE6 users not being able to view the embedded pictures here. Until I figure out what the problem is (most likely the object tag), the default slideshow is available directly from Flickr for now. That link will also display the photos in sequential order (Pedro's delivery, Reyes swinging), which for some reason I can't seem to do with the Pictobrowser.
Update, 03/27: Well here are a few new pics from Sunday's game vs. the Tigers. Pedro looked good, made more than a few Tigers look helpless. It was more difficult than I thought to take pictures with the little guys around. Put it this way, when we got up to leave, we heard some clapping around us. So now I'm the dad with those kids. I'll try to figure something out next game; I'm thinking straight jackets and/or sedatives. Only kidding! Besides, the sedatives are for me...
To say I was in shock after seeing Delgado get hit with a splintered bat is a understatement. Seeing the blood dripping down his arm/hand was a bit more than we bargained for at a baseball game. As if I need to say it, I hope Carlos and by extension, the rest of the Mets, heal quickly. For purely selfish reasons, of course...
1:00am EST in NY: still packing and making sure nothing is forgotten, especially getting rid of almost everything in the fridge. I forgot to do that once... We leave tomorrow and it can't happen soon enough. Assuming I'm all settled and not completely wiped out by the trip and keeping track of the boys, I'll post again sometime tomorrow night/early Sunday morning from PSL.
Mets win 8-2 over Marlins, John Maine went a strong 5 shutout innings, thats 9 total scoreless innings over his past two starts. Relax, its spring. Rangers lose 3-2; all good things must come to an end, but to the Panthers?!
Florida, here we come!
The NY Post has yet another rumor about Mets interest in what I assume would be a temporary replacement for Moises Alou, this time concerning Shannon Stewart (no, not this one) and Reed Johnson. Unfortunately for me, Matthew Artus over at Always Amazin' has already beaten me to the punch and punched the rumor senseless.So, for those of you keeping score, that now links the Mets to EIGHT (8) possible outfielders to either replace Alou or platoon Church: Xavier Nady from Pittsburgh, Marcus Thames from Detroit, Randy Winn from San Francisco, Juan Rivera from Los Angeles by way of Anaheim, Barry Bonds and Kenny Lofton via Free Agency, and now Stewart and Johnson.
First off, the Barry Bonds rumor irks me more each time I hear it. To think Omar wouldn't immediately rule him out as a free-agent signing possibility boggles the mind. Could anyone imagine what the Mets clubhouse would become with the Bonds cancer camping out in it for a full season? Under the Minaya regime, the Mets have been as concerned about getting good players as they have been about getting good people. Bonds fits into that formula how exactly? While we're on the subject of answering the unanswerable, how many championship teams has Bonds played on during his 22-year career?
I have to wholeheartedly agree with Matt's take on Angel Pagan. Would it be asking too much to give Pagan a shot, see how he performs, then reassess he situation in May? As I typed those words, Angel Pagan hit a two-run shot in the bottom of the 7th to put the Mets up 4-2 over Baltimore. 10 RBIs and hitting over .400. It' spring, I know. All I'm asking is give the guy a shot. Do the Mets have to resort to Yankee-like tendencies and wind up with a player who commands an All-Star salary and performs at a no-star level? It would be unrealistic to assume Pagan will hit like this over the entire season, but having a switch-hitting outfielder on the bench available for platoon/pinch-hitting duty can only help NY in the long run.
On the funnier and non-nostalgic side, Armando Benitez is now a Blue Jay. We always knew his pitching was for the birds; now it is quite literally. Downside: Met don't get to face him this year.
Mets win 6-2 today and are now 9-5 so far this spring. Oliver Perez looked much better than his previous two outings, giving up 3 hits and a run, a K and BB over 4 innings. Arm slot and delivery looked more consistent, if you can call falling off the mound 10 feet towards the 3rd base bag consistent. If Maine and Perez can win another 15 games apiece this year, the Mets will be in the catbird seat in the NL East. No offense Armando.
For me, Port St. Lucie is only 4 days away. I'm already in vacation mode, just ask my boss. I'm all prepared for those days I'll be spending chasing the kids around some theme park. I picked myself up one of these yesterday; I'll be hooking it up tonight for "testing purposes". The plan is this: On the days we're not going to Tradition Field and have plans for the Seaquarium or a theme park, I'll record the games at home, set myself up by the pool at night after the kids are in bed and watch the Mets game I recorded on my DVR in NY. They don't air as many games in Florida as they do up here. That's right, DVR'ing Mets spring training games from NY so I can watch them in Florida at night. Anyone got a problem with that?
The weather has been flat-out cold and dreary in NY all winter. I don't know what I'm looking forward to more; the screened-in pool in the backyard, the beaches down there or finally getting to see the Mets live in '08. Decisions, decisions. Already I'm worried about finding time to pack. I suppose blogging less and packing more would solve that problem.
Nah....
The streaking and dare I say the hottest team, not just in the Eastern Conference, but in the entire NHL, beat the Sabres last night. In earning a 3-2 shootout win at HSBC arena, the New York Rangers now have the longest point streak in the NHL this season, having earned at least a point in every game over their past 13 contests. The win moves them to 10-0-3 in their last 13, and an incredible 15-3-3 in their last 20. The last time the Rangers played this well over such a long period of time was in '94. I won't go there...
1st goal: Jason Pominville, with assists from Paul Gaustad and Jochen Hecht at 0:16. The Rangers didn't realize the game had started and were still doing warmups. Henrik was hung out to dry. Worst start imaginable for the good guys.
2nd goal: Fedor Tyutin, from Dawes and Shanahan, 1:22 in. Huge answer for the Rangers; they don't get this goal, the game goes differently. Both teams settled down a bit after this one, but both teams were guilty of giving up glorious scoring opportunities. Rangers had no answer for Thomas Vanek.
3rd goal: Jaromir Jagr, from Avery and Dubinsky, 8:26 of the 2nd. Avery absolutely demolished Sabre defenseman Nathan Paetsch, grabbed the puck and fed Jagr who was now wide open in the slot for a perfect one-timer to give NY a 2-1 lead.
4th goal: PP goal. Thomas "we have no answer" Vanek, from Jason Pominville and Maxim Afinogenov, at 14:14 of the 3rd. Pominville took a high shot from just inside the blue line, Vanek redirected it in over Lundquist.
The Rangers had too many penalties called against them. Did they deserve some of them. Yes. It seemed playing the 2nd of back-to-back games was wearing on NY, especially in the 2nd period. Were some of the calls tacky? Definitely. Did the refs, specifically Bill McCreary miss or ignore calls the other way? Absolutely.
Avery takes a hard elbow to the face, somehow, McCreary "misses" this one. Avery then gets called for roughing (retaliation) a few minutes later on what amounted to a push. Coincidentally, Tyutin had just been given two minutes for holding (deserved), which gave the Sabres a full 2 minute 5-3 power play. NY killed it very effectively, however. Another egregious call was on Fredrik Sjostrom, who was very obviouly coming to a stop and leaning backwards, trying to avoid contact with Sabre netminder Ryan Miller, when he was crosschecked into Miller. McCleary calls Sjostrom for interference. This one cost the Rangers a goal and the lead.
Probably the worst of the night was at the end of regulation; Colton Orr puts a hard but clean hit on a Sabre in front of Buffalo's bench as time expires. Andrew Peters, who is on the bench, punches Orr in the chops, Orr puts his hands up to protect himself, pushes Peters, who then takes another swipe at Orr. Penalties? Incidental 10 minute misconducts. INCIDENTAL!? Where is the mandatory unsportsmanlike conduct penalty on Peters for getting involved in a play from the bench?! Referee Bill McCreary has got to retire or be retired after this season, he's a joke. How Renney holds keeps his cool in those situations, I'll never know. Rangers would get called for 10 penalties, Sabres 5.
Buffalo played down 2 defensemen for almost 1/2 the game, as Jaroslav Spacek was lost to an upper body injury in the 1st and Dmitri Kalinin did not make it back to the bench in the 2nd. One would think that with Buffalo down to 4 D, the Rangers would press the attack, never letting the Sabres breathe and win going away. One would be wrong.
Overall, the Rangers made too many mistakes that Lundquist had to cover for. Bad or non-existent defensive-zone coverage, east-west passes (Straka) or tired legs; against a better team, the Rangers would have lost this one. Thankfully, we have Lundquist. In the OT, Lundquist stopped Afinogenov on a breakaway and Nigel Dawes hit the post behind Miller with 8 seconds remaining.
Shootout:
1st Round - Sabres' Drew Stafford hit the post behind Lundquist, Brendan Shanahan's patented rising wrister from the slot beats Miller high on the glove side.
2nd Round - Henrik forces Ales Kotalik wide, no chance. Nigel Dawes tries to lift puck over Miller's right pad, Miller stops it.
3rd Round - Jason Pominville snaps a shot over Lunquist's left shoulder, ties shootout at 1. Scotty Gomez answers with a beauty, shoulder-faking Miller to the right, skating left and barely skliding the puck between Miller' right skate and the post. Rangers win shootout 2-1, game 3-2.
NY (37-24-9) is now tied for the 5th seed with the sinking Sens, only behind Ottawa by one victory. The win puts them just 3 points behind the game-in-hand Devils for 1st place in both the division and conference. Crazy.
NY gets 3 days off now, with the Florida Panthers in their sights on Friday. When a team is hot as the Rangers are, the mistakes aren't as glaring. With 12 games left, now would be a time to fix whatever issues there are in preparation for the playoffs. It goes without saying that coach Renney will address the problems that reared their ugly head last night.
Today will be one of those short and quick postings day; I have papers due, a test tonight and a mid-term Saturday. Maybe I can get graded on my blog postings instead...
While slumming on YouTube, I found this hilarious video from 1986.
Are those Members Only jackets?!
So the Disco Dodgers were making videos in '86, while NY had a parade. Parade. Video. Parade. Video. Hmmmm...
From a commenter on YouTube, "Please, for the love of God, make it stop!"
Carlos Delgado and Carlos Beltran will see their first spring training action against the Red Sox this afternoon. The game will be at Tradition Field in PSL, airing on SNY at 1:00pm. Mets fans will be happy to see two big pieces of the Mets line-up finally take the field this spring, but there are of course still causes for concern on the part of Delgado.
The Mets front office must be concerned about how much Delgado's hip problem will impact his offensive production. My biggest worry is that if the pain becomes too great, Carlos will begin to change his swing mechanics to avoid aggravating the injury, which can't possibly help the Mets. You wonder why Carlos can't catch up to fastballs up and in? It's a bit difficult to swivel on a painful hip. What, if any, is Omar Minaya's back-up plan should Carlos be unable to carry his share of the offensive load? Will we see Willie Randolph push Carlos down in the order? With Alou out, what kind of protection will the Mets have to bat behind Delgado? Lots of questions, not too many readily available answers. If the Mets want to win now, Omar should be (and probably is) considering all possible options to pick up the possible offensive slack from Delgado. That does not, in any way mean that the Mets should get Sammy Sosa, or God forbid, Barroid. Forget it.
Beltran on the other hand, will benefit greatly from his off-season surgery, assuming he doesn't re-injure anything in the next month. Mets fans need to think about the defensive plays Beltran made last year on bum knees that he eventually had surgery on, plus what he did for the Mets offensively in '07 (.276, .353, .525, .878, 33 HR, 112 RBI, 33 2B, 93 RS, 23 SB, 69 BB in 554 ABs). 33 dingers and 112 RBIs and he had surgery on both knees when the season ended. The guy played through pain and still gave us an excellent season.
Beltran began running the bases just 8 days ago on March 2nd and is taking his everyday spot in centerfield today. If anyone questions this guys heart, will and talent, they might consider finding another team to root for. Carlos not only doesn't deserve finicky Mets fans booing him if he goes into a slump, he should get a standing O every time he steps to the plate. This isn't Carlos Baerga here people. Has anyone heard the type of whining, complaining and finger-pointing from Beltran that we typically hear from the Bronx, especially when things aren't going well? I think not. Comparing Beltran's contributions to Delgado's, one could make the argument that Beltran is a much more important cog in the Mets offense and defense than Delgado is. Not only does Beltran affect the every day line-up, we're looking at one of the premier centerfielders in baseball. How many runs is Beltran worth if you add saved runs to his offensive run producing totals? We have an '06 and '07 Silver Slugger Award and Gold Glove winner patrolling centerfield at Shea. Show some love people.
"Beltran's legs, and specifically his quadriceps, were so weakened by the matching pair of operations that he's had to build them up again from practically zero. Now that Beltran is getting stronger, the task becomes a little more complicated." (Newsday.com)
Carlos has hit .298, .320, & .270 with RISP over the past three seasons (much worse with RISP and 2 out in '05 & '07, .224, as opposed to .310 in '06). When healthy, this guy will carry the Mets. When he's not, he's still better than 90% of centerfielders in baseball. Carlos easily makes the top 10 list of all MLB outfielders and has got to be in the top 3 outfielders in the National League; Matt Holliday, Alfonso Soriano, Carlos Beltran, with Andruw Jones right there, assuming Jones' production doesn't continue to fall...and Holliday and Soriano don't even play in the same league as Beltran defensively.
If he leaves when his contract is up or when he retires as a Met (hopefully), we're going to be comparing the next Mets centerfielder(s) to Carlos Beltran. Maybe, as with artists, Beltran's worth and talent won't be appreciated until he's gone, which will be a sad commentary on how Mets fans have treated Beltran during his stay in NY. He deserves better.
In case any of you eternal pessimists out there want to hang your hat on Beltran being frozen at the dish by a 3-2 curveball with the bases loaded and 2 out in Game 7 of the '06 NLCS, get over it. I have...mostly.
Update (1:14pm): Carlos Beltran will be DHing today, not playing centerfield. He's still the man.
There was a playoff intense hockey game played at Madison Square Garden on Sunday afternoon. Somewhere along the way, someone forget to tell the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins that the new NHL is all about wide-open play. Goaltenders Henrik Lundquist and Alex Auld had 64 saves between the two of them; they must have missed the NHL memo on the request for a higher goal scoring rate. Two original six teams went at it head-to-head and for an afternoon, brought us back to the glory days of hockey. The more things change, the more they stay the same. Except for the shootout, of course.
The season series between the Bruins and Rangers have all been tight affairs, with Boston coming out on top in all three previous games; one in regulation, one in OT, and another in a shootout. Having already clinched a possible tiebreaker matchup against the Rangers, this game was solely for playoff seeding, something the Rangers have been playing for over the past month and playing well. Boston was coming off a wild game with the Capitals, scoring two late 5-on-3 PP goals in a come from behind 2-1 victory. Leading up to that win, Boston had given up 19 goals in their previous 3 games, all losses, including a 10-2 drubbing by the 'Caps on March 3rd. NHL leading goal-scorer (54) Alexander Ovechkin's 1st period hat trick was part of a 6 goal Washington onslaught 20 minutes into that game. The Rangers had just come off a convincing 4-1 win over a desperate Islanders club; a game in which Henrick Lundquist seemed to suddenly find the focus which had been missing since November.
If old-time hockey is your thing, this was a game that needed to be watched. The 1st period was split pretty evenly between the two teams, with Boston holding the advantage territorially in the first half. Aided by two power plays, the Rangers were able to turn the tide offensively and put strong pressure on both the Bruins D and Alex Auld. The 2nd was more of the same, but the Rangers began to create more opportunities in the offensive zone. Once again, the 1st line of Jagr, Dubinsky and Avery was casing havoc. Jagr was skating circles around Boston's D; he must have been overjoyed to find out that Bruin's captain, defenseman Zdeno Chara was out with an undisclosed injury. In the previous matchups against Boston, Chara has simply been stuck to Jagr like glue, mostly erasing him as a scoring threat. With Avery crashing the net every chance he got and Jagr doing his thing, it seemed almost inevitable that the Rangers would score first. But Auld was Boston's best player all afternoon, even getting a little help from the crossbar late in the 1st on a Chris Drury shot.
The same could be said about Lundquist; any defensive breakdown by the Rangers, Henrik was there to bail them out...and there were more than a few. In his post-game comments, Rangers coach Tom Renney spoke of his team's "sloppy play". Although they tightened up defensively overall as the game wore on, Boston had plenty of good chances to score. Fortunately for the Rangers, Lundquist was the complete opposite; in control and completely focused, nothing was getting by him today.
Henrik saved his best for the 3rd period. At 4:44, with Bruins forward Glen Metropolit flying towards the Rangers net and center Philip Kessel already on top of Henrik near the right post, Kessel put a perfect goalmouth feed on Metropolit's stick. Lundquist had initially been playing Kessel to shoot and had to make a headlong dive back to his left to make an incredibly acrobatic glove save on Metropolit's shot. The rebound of Metropolit's shot came right to Bruins defenseman Mark Stuart in the slot, who snapped a wrister towards the fallen Lundquist. Henrik snapped up his right pad while still lying on the ice to stop Stuart cold. An awesome display of goaltending to say the least. Almost a minute later at 5:35, again Lundquist found a way to stop center David Krejci right in front. Initially Lundquist looked behind him as the puck had found its way over his goal stick, but he had gotten his pads closed quickly enough to deny Krejci.
Speedy Ranger forward Scotty Gomez was also robbed twice in the 3rd by Alex Auld. One was on a breakaway, as Auld got enough of Scotty's shot to make the save. Another came after with about 4:20 left in the game. NY forward Nigel Dawes stole the puck just inside the blue line and found a wide open Gomez in the slot. Gomez's slapshot was somehow stopped by Auld with a great left pad save.
Both netminder's continued their strong play into the overtime period and shootout. But rookie forward Nigel Dawes, who has found ways to score big goals and make critical plays during this playoff run, finally solved Alex Auld. After Auld had stopped Brendan Shanahan, Dawes skated in and found an opening low to Auld's stick side, netting the puck before Auld could react and giving the Rangers a 1-0 lead in the shootout. Lundquist continued to exhibit the stopping power of a brick wall, denying Sturm, Kessel and Krejci to give the Rangers the 1-0 win. Nigel Dawes has been on a shootout roll of late, going 3-3 during his recent opportunities. Ever since his last call-up from Hartford, Dawes has been a different player. Something in his game seemed to have clicked for him; he doesn't play or look like a rookie anymore.
During the game I kept expecting Boston's energy to sag, as they had just come from an emotional win over the Capitals on Saturday afternoon, while the Rangers hadn't played since Thursday. Never happened. NY may have had better opportunities late in the 3rd, but Boston skated with NY all afternoon and made more than a few Rangers defenseman look like cardboard cutouts, the Savard line in particular was swarming the Rangers D most of the game. It seemed as if the Rangers were content to allow Boston to skate in with the puck all game and attempt to force turnovers to feed their transition game. It worked, to an extent. I'd rather see NY's D stop the opposing teams offense at the blue line, rather than depend on the likes of Marek Malik to force a defensive zone turnover. Then again, I was calling for Renney to give Lundquist a rest a few games ago, so take what I say with a grain of salt. Blueshirt blueliners Mark Staal and Dan Girardi played strong all game, with Girardi in particular blocking multiple shots.
Second 1st star of the game in a row for Lundquist. With his 9th shutout of the season, Henrik is now tied with Columbus Blue Jacket's netminder Pascal Leclaire for the league lead in shutouts. Those shutouts are the most since Ranger's HOF goaltender Eddie Giacomin had 9 in '66-'67.
No rest for the weary however, as the Rangers travel up to Buffalo for a game Monday night. NY is now 9-0-3 in their last 12, 14-3-3 in their last 19. NY is looking to sweep the season series from Buffalo, having won the first three games in the series so far. Buffalo is coming off a tough 4-3 OT loss against the Carolina Panthers, after having come back from down 2-0. The Sabres have been in a rough stretch of late, going 1-3-1 over their past 5.
Does Renney go with the hot hand in Lundquist or give Henrik an extra day off and put Valiquette in net? I'm leaning towards Lundquist getting the start against Buffalo tonight as the Rangers don't play again until Friday vs. the Panthers.
Post-game MSG interview.
Stan Fischler's post-game question to Tom Renney: "Tom, do you think the Daylight Saving's Time change had anything to do with today's game (lack of scoring)?"
Tom Renney: (sic)"You nailed it Stan, it was a big psychological drain(?) for us. Best question of the year."
Thanks for that Stan...
Mets win again, 3-0 over the Astros. Jose Reyes led off the game with a line-shot home-run over the right-field fence. David Wright hit the ball hard the opposite way, with a triple to show for his efforts. Angel Pagan continues to hit and on top of a crisp, efficient win, there was a Jose Valentin sighting. Who knows where Jose will wind up, but it was good to see him back. NY is now 8-4 on the spring; after an 0-3-1 start, who's complaining?
The story of the afternoon however was John Maine. He breezed through the Astros batting order as if it was spring training. Maine went 4 hitless innings, striking out 3 and walking 1. He wasn't exactly facing the Killer Bees as 3 ex-Mets were in Houston's line-up: Victor Diaz, David Newhan and Ty Wiggington. Still, Maine had some pop on his fastball and looked unhittable. Billy Wagner and Aaron Heilman (2) contributed 3 scoreless innings, as did Juan Rincon and Carlos Muniz. More positive signs from PSL. Always a good thing.
Metsblog has a few comments on the status of Luis Castillo and Carlos Beltran; both look fine according to Matt. I'm sure the rash of recent injuries, in addition to the players who were recovering from surgery looked scary, but as I've said almost every time I've mentioned injuries here; it is still only March 9th. Plenty of time to take it slow and make sure they're as close to 100% when Opening Day does arrive.
I watched Friday afternoon's Mets win over the Indians and got a good chuckle from John Kruk (rare, but it happens). The Krukster is picking the Mets to finish 3rd behind Atlanta and Philly. Of course he is. I really didn't have much to say about it; it would sort of be like complaining about Joe Buck and Tim McCarver calling an NLCS with the Mets and Cardinals. What's the point? Anyway, I did find a mildly amusing post about it, so of course I'll pass it on. When I Google Kruk and get results like this '...of about 7,810 for idiot "john kruk"', I'm not really going out on a limb when I say that it isn't the first and nor will it be the last time Kruk beclowns himself.
It's 3:49 PM EST on a rainy Saturday afternoon in NY and I'm watching the Mets play the Marlins on CW11 live from Port St. Lucie, Florida. Got to see Pelfey throw a couple of good innings and get smacked around in another. Saw Damion Easley and Endy Chavez take a few hacks and more importantly, make it to first base without noticeably limping. Watched Brian Schneider use his healthier hamstring to smack a wind-aided homer. Caught Easley's most definitely wind-aided opposite field shot and marveled at the bomb hit by Argenis Reyes that didn't need any wind. First home-runs by the Mets this spring, in case anyone's counting. Saw Jorge Cantu pound Mets pitching like it was September 30th, 2007 all over again (and he wasn't even a Marlin then). Observed Duaner Sanchez throw a good inning and we don't have to wait another week before he throws again. We hope.
Game just ended, Mets downed 12-4. Announcer Kevin Burkhardt might have went a wee bit overboard with the game-ending comment, "The Mets' 6-game winning streak just went up in flames." Might be a tad early to be analogizing the Mets '07 collapse with a spring training loss. We hope.
Who cares about the outcome. In winning 6 in a row, NY has only proven they can win with all their minor-leaguers and players who won't even make the team. Doesn't mean much, except that if Angel Pagan continues to rake, he will be in the Mets clubhouse come March 31st. What we really are concerned with is that the remainder of the M*A*S*H* unit slowly returns to action, gets some time in between the Tradition Field lines and makes it to Shea before April Fool's Day. I suppose if all these injuries would have occurred in late March, there would be much wailing and gnashing of teeth. (Wait, didn't we do that already?) But its still March 8th. Enough time to heal. Enough time to look at the first week of March as a prank played on the Mets by the baseball gods, an aberration, a bump on the way to bigger and better things. 'Cause in the grand scheme of things, these injuries don't count. We hope.
The only serious injury has been suffered by Moises Alou, who won't return to action until mid-May at the earliest. In Delgado, we can only hope his hip holds up and he gives us something better than '07. In between now and then we just need to know that Beltran knees will carry him up Tal's Hill, that Endy's ankle will allow him to jump tall buildings in a single bound again, that Duaner will drive himself and that Castillo's knees will be grateful for real grass. We hope.
It's said that spring is a time of baseball hope, that hope floats for every team, that hope springs eternal, that it's a time for renewal of hope and faith.
We hope.
After being beaten in a shootout on Tuesday night by the bad guys from Long Island, the hottest team in the East came into Nassau Coliseum, took the life out of the building early, leaned on Henrik the King to save their butts in the 2nd period, and smothered the Islanders in the 3rd.
First half of the 1st period was all Rangers. Blueshirts leading goal-scorer Brendan Shanahan potted his 22nd of the season only 1:29 into the 1st, immediately putting the Islanders back on their heels. While on a delayed penalty, Nigel Dawes, from the top of the left circle in his own end, hit a cherrypicking (I mean that in a good way) Shanahan with a perfect home-run pass. Shanny broke in on Islander goalie Dubielewicz all alone, beating him with a wrister low on the stick side. Sean Avery missed a golden opportunity a few minutes later; he received a perfect goal-mouth pass from Jagr; all he had to do was chip it home. Dubielewicz was down and out of the play early and the net yawned open, just not quite wide enough for Avery, as he banged it off the far post and back to Jagr, who was too shocked to keep his stick on the ice.
The Islanders began putting pressure on the Rangers D in the 2nd half of the first period, spending a few back-to-back shifts in the Rangers zone, getting the NYR defense scrambling and putting multiple shots on net but Lundquist was up to the task. In between strong and persistent Islander forechecks, the Rangers played a good transition game, feeding on Islander turnovers and earning more quality scoring chances than the home team.
But Avery got a measure of revenge (on himself) at 13:25, deflecting a Marek "The Anchor" Malik pass to make it 2-0. Brandon Dubinsky had kept the puck alive along the boards and chipped it to up to Malik at the left point, who hit Avery with a hard and perfectly deflectable pass in front. Later in the period, Chris Drury was in almost the same exact position as Avery had been earlier when he hit the far post, only Chris did Sean one better, completely missing the net and shooting it directly into the oft swimming Dubielewicz. The lucky Isles escaped the 1st only trailing 2-0; it could have easily been 4-0.
The 2nd was all Islanders. Current St. Louis Blues GM and ex-Rangers goalie/announcer/color man John Davidson used to say, "Someone call the police, somebody stole the Rangers legs." I can't think of a more appropriate description. The Islanders were playing desperate hockey, as Ted Nolan must have reminded them about early tee times this April. Fortunately for the Rangers, the Isles have major difficulty scoring; they put tremendous pressure on the Rangers D but were unable to score until halfway through the 2nd, when a Sean Bergenheim pinball shot bounced off two Rangers D skates and past Lundquist. If I remember correctly, all of the Isles goals on Tuesday (excluding the shootout) were scored off strange deflections and odd angles.
Isles netminder Wade Dubielewicz swimmingly
provides 2nd period intermission entertainment.
photo via islanders.nhl.com
At the 1:12 mark of the 3rd period, the Rangers strong play sucked the remainder of what passes for air out the Coliseum. As a Ranger power play expired, Nigel Dawes retrieved a rebound behind the goal line off his own shot and passed it out underneath Dubielewicz to Mark Staal at the top of the left circle. Seeing Dubielewicz in his usual position of being out of position and floundering, Marc Staal quickly threw the puck at the net, where Scotty Gomez was waiting to deflect it home from the left side. The Rangers went on to dominate the 3rd period, capping the scoring on an empty netter by Avery, his 2nd of the night. The tally was actually ruled an automatic goal, as Avery was pulled down from behind by Isles D Aaron Johnson as the puck slid toward the open net and went in.
After Tuesday's shootout loss to the Islanders, I was calling for Lundquist to sit tonight in favor of Steve Valiquette. Boy, was I wrong. Lundquist easily earned 1st star of the game in this tilt. If you kept your eyes on Henrik during the game, especially during the 2nd half of the 1st period and almost the entirety of the 2nd, Lundquist didn't have to move much. He always seemed to be in position for every shot, anticipating where the shot was coming from and where the puck was going. Completely in control, great to watch.
The Rangers have given up 169 goals against, 2nd best in the Eastern Conference behind the NJ Devils who have given up 157. 3rd behind the Rangers is the Boston Bruins with 189 GA, although they have given up 18 goals in the past 3 games. Still, NY has been in the top 3 in the East in GA all season, so its obvious they are playing better defense than most. But as well as the Rangers play defense and assuming they make the playoffs, they will only go as far as Henrik can carry them. If NY can continue to get balanced scoring from 3 lines and Henrik gets on a roll, there's no telling how far this team can go. Henrik Lundquist became the 2nd goaltender in NHL history to win at least 30 games in each of his first 3 seasons. Ron Hextall is the only other NHL goalie to accomplish that feat.
Another key to tonight's Rangers victory was that the brain-dead turnovers that occurred consistently on Tuesday night were all but eliminated tonight. They bent a little on defense in the 2nd, but you had to know the Islanders would play above their heads for stretches at a time, especially with their season hanging in the balance and against their biggest rivals.
The Rangers are now 8-0-3 over their last 11 games and 13-3-3 over their past 19. They have also earned points in 9 straight road games, something they haven't accomplished since the '72-'73 season. With a final score of 4-1 and 79 points, the Rangers grab sole possession of the 6th seed in the Eastern Conference. Turned out to be a very productive night indeed, as the Rangers now find themselves only 4 points behind the Penguins for 1st place in the Eastern Conference with a game in hand. The Bruins got shellacked 8-2 by the Maple Leafs, allowing the Rangers to jump over the Bruins into 6th. The Penguins got manhandled by the Panthers tonight; SteveW was at the BankAtlantic Center in Florida tonight and was shocked at how the Panthers were able to shut down Malkin, Crosby and crew, outshooting Pittsburgh by a 42-27 margin and outscoring them 5-2. The Blueshirts are also only 2 behind the Devils for the 5th seed. The incumbent but taking on water Senators are in LA tonight; the Kings lead 1-0 with 15:00 to go in the 3rd. Go Kings!
Update (1:13am EST): LA Kings defeat the Senators 2-0. Rangers are now 2 points behind Sens for 5th seed with 15 games remaining.
No, we are definitely not all Islanders.
