Flyers, Rangers Running Diary

The reeling Rangers take on their Atlantic Division foe, the Philadelphia Flyers. These two teams are separate by 1 point in the standings and a Rangers win can jump them from 6th to 4th in the standings while the Flyers still have 2 games in hand.

1st Period
20:00
Prucha in today over Aaron Voros. Renney looking to jump start the offense a little with the move and also likely trying to show off Prucha before the trade deadline.

19:30
Scramble out in front of the Rangers net and Hank is already sprawled out onto the ice. It's never a good sign when your goalie is on his stomach with 30 seconds into the game.

16:00
Hartnell picks Betts' pocket behind the net and feeds Lupul out front. Hank stones him.

15:00
Rangers still have yet to put a puck on net. The Flyers look like a team who all went to bed early last night and were well rested. The Rangers look like they were all drinking until 3:00am and didn't get up until about 45 minutes ago.

13:00
1st break of a pretty calm/sluggish/boring game. Doc Emrick's voice has yet to raise to its normal excitable level. The fan's don't even seem that into the game. We need Colton Orr to just start fighting people to get a pulse back into MSG.

12:00 (GOAL)
Hank allows a weak rebound to the side and tries to dive onto the puck. Powe gets to the puck first and Powe feeds Claude Giroux in front with ho goalie in net. Helen Keller could've scored on that one.

9:30 PP
Rangers have the first man advantage of the period off of a trip by Gagne. This is the opportunity the Rangers need to capitalize on in order to get the crowd back into it and to tie up the game. Rangers 1-26 on the pp since the All Star break.

One minute into the PP and the Rangers are having trouble establishing possession in the Flyers zone. The crowd is booing them, and rightfully so. Philly has a shorty opportunity on a slapshot from the blueline. The PP is over and each team has registered one shot on goal.

7:00 PP
Cluade Giroux outhustles Michal "If I play bad enough they can't trade me" Rozsival and draws an interference penalty. Flyers are playing Tic- Tac- Toe with their passes with Hank making a great save on Richards from Knuble. Penalty killed.

Do people really think that Pizza Hut lasagna is that good that it can fool actual Italians? Are there Pizza Hut's in Italy where Italians go when they don't feel like making good food? There is no way those commercials are filmed with hidden cameras.

Also, the NBC heads up Poker championship is coming soon. I only mention that because they showed Vanessa Rousso in the commercial and she is quite hot.

Return from the commercial and NBC shows that the Flyers lead shots 9-7. There is no way the Rangers have 7 shots on goal.

1:30 (PP)
Naslund draws a penalty for boarding where parent trips and goes into the boards with Naslund behind him. Bad call in my opinion but from the ref's point of view, he has to make that call.

0:10
Hartnell erases the Flyers PP by knocking the stick out of Daniel Girardi's hand. Dumb penalty. This will give the Ranger's a power play about 40 seconds into the period for 1:20. No need to worry for the Flyers fans though, because if the Rangers can't score with 2:00 of power play time, taking away 40% of that will be a near impossibility.

The NBC studio crew just ripped http://sports.yahoo.com/nhl/players/1844 and Drury a new one for having no heart or fire since donning the Broadway Blueshirt. I couldn't agree more. Someone has to light a fire under these guys and mild mannered Tom Renney doesn't seem like the one who can do it. I think Renney is a good coach, but these guys need someone like Keenan to strike the fear of God into them, rather than someone to coddle their feelings.

2nd Period
19:30 PP
Jeff Carter trips Staal going through the neutral zone. Now a 5-3 PP. Paul Mara actually puts a shot on goal. Glove save by Biron due to the lack of traffic in front.

SHORTY GOAL
Mike Richards feed from Coburn off of a blocked shot and Richards flies by the entire Rangers defense and beats Hank top shelf. 2-0 Flyers.

Gagne breakaway where he is hauled down from behind with inexplicably no call. The Flyers have had more scoring opportunities down 2 men than the Rangers up 2 men. The crowd vociferously lets the know how they all collectively feel. I waiting for some sarcastic Ranger's fans to start bringing white towels to the game just to throw them in.

15:00
Renney does his normal "Lets ruin any chemistry we could possibly have" tactic by changing up the lines. While I understand he needs to do something to try and find a line combo that works, there is no cohesion on this team at all. Haven't heard Doc mention Gomez or Zherdev yet this game. Are they even playing?

13:00 Goal 3-0
Mark Staal leave his defensive post to try and help out on a double team out in front. Puck trickles to where Staal should have been and Matt Carle roofs it.

12:00 Goal 4-0
Cue Valiquette. Hank allows a weak wrap around by Glen Metropolit where the puck is thrown across the red line and ricochets off of Hank into the net.

11:00 Goal 5-0
That was quick. Let me just say its rough to keep a running diary of a game where 3 goals are scored only a 2 minute span. Claude Giroux flies by the entire Rangers team and feeds a somehow wide open Mike Richards in the slot. The Flyers have scored 3 goals on 3 shots and I'm waiting for Mirimax to cast Hank in the next Friday the 13th movie. He already has the hockey mask and will kill people by bludgeoning them with his stick. The entire Rangers defense will be the first to be killed.

9:00
I wonder what will happen first, the firing of Renney or the signing of Avery. I think Sather has to give Renney the rest of the season with Avery, but if Sather doesn't pull that trigger, a change has to be made on the coaching staff.

7:00 Goal 5-1
Rangers show some signs of life. Callahan hustles into the corner on the forecheck and beats the rest of the Flyers to the puck. He feeds Korpikoski out front and Lauri sneaks one by Biron down low through traffic. (Note: this traffic was created by the Flyers defensemen rather than the Rangers screening)

6:59 PP
Colton Orr immediately challenges Riley Cote off the faceoff and Cote doesn't take the bait. Orr gets a 2 minute crosschecking penalty and a 10 minute unsportsmanlike conduct. Way to kill the life in the building Colton.

5:00 PP
After a successful penalty kill, the Rangers have an energy boost. This energy leads to a little hustle with the puck and a Claude Giroux trip. Good to see some life in what's left of the crowd in Morgue Square Garden but in all likelihood, this is too little too late.

4:00 Penalty
Mark Staal erases the PP with boarding Powe. Rangers are now 1-30 on the PP, a stellar 3%

3:00 Penalty
During the 4-4, Scott Hartnell trucks Valiquette from behind leading to a goalie interference. Rangers have 20 seconds of 4-3. With Biron on his back and the puck trickling out into the slot, Naslund lets the puck jump over his stick and misses and opportunity to make this 5-2.

1:00
Dubinsky and Hartnell drop their gloves and go at it after shoving around the net. A couple good punches thrown but none really landed. They hug each other and Duby wrestles Hartnell to the ground. Bascially a stalemate. Personal side note: I was tied in PIM going into today in fantasy, and Hartnell has 9 thus far. Other side note. Rangers now 1-32 on the PP.

3rd Period
Seeing how this is a blowout, the 3rd period will more be musings than a running diary.

After Prucha making a nice move off of the faceoff and creating a great scoring chance, why doesn't he play every game and leave Voros on the bench? Voros is a wannabe tough guy and scorer (a la Ryan Getzlaf) but is really neither. He adds little value if he isn't parked out in front of the net and even then the contribution is minimal. Prucha at least gives the illusion of a threat.

The Rangers either don't practice at game speed or have players that tire easily because often their passes are just one step out in front of the intended target. This leads to way too many turnovers.

When fighting, there is no point punching the other guy's helmet repeatedly (Paul Mara). These helmets are made to withstand slapshots from frozen pucks. Now Mara is getting X-rays in the locker room.

The Rangers next two games are against the Blues and Islanders. If those two teams can't jumpstart the Rangers offense, their season may be over.

Allegedly the Rangers have put up 30 shots with 10 minutes left. What the NHL needs to do is come up with a stat for the percentage of shots that are actual scroing chances. While I realize that technically all shots are chances to score, the Rangers have relatively few scoring chances considering they have 30 shots.

Prucha to Redden to Zherdev for the goal. Zherdev great job on the redirect. 5-2 Flyers.

The Prucha Duby Zherdev line is flying around the ice and wreaking havoc. Let's start with this line on the ice tomorrow night and see what happens.

Yet again another disappointment for the NYR. The stars of the game has to be Mike Richards for his back breaking goal, Biron for saving 35 shots, and Claude Giroux for simply single handedly outhustling the entire Rangers roster.