Rangers Rout Avs 6-1, The Advent of the Tortorella Goal

Tortorella was the the opposite of Tom Renney in multiple ways. Tort is American, Renney is Canadian. Their demeanors are night and day. Tortorella is the lion whereas Renney was the lamb. The other main difference comes in their coaching philosophies. Renney was a finesse coach who enjoyed lots of passing and the fancy goal. He ran the Princeton offense of the NHL, lots of backdoor cuts and a slower controlled pace of the game. Tortorella runs the Mike DiAntoni/ Mike Martz offense. This includes a face paced offense, an avid forecheck (even while short handed), bombing shots from anywhere in the offensive zone, and most importantly in my book, crashing the net. These are the types of goals the Rangers never scored under Renney and that they are now starting to score under Tort. So I now introduce you to the newest member of the Back to the Point Blog... The Tortorella Goal.

The Tortorella Goal is any goal that involves crashing the net, bombing from the point, anything generated from an aggressive forecheck, and anything else that I see that I determine would never happen under Renney. This is very scientific, I promise.

28 seconds into last night's game and the Rangers brought the Madison Square Garden crowd to their feet with a great 2-1 break leading to a Ryan Callahan goal from Brandon Dubinsky. 40 seconds later and the Rangers scored their first Tortorella goal of the night. The Rangers worked the puck behind the net and Lauri Korpikoski, who was forechecking deep, simply threw the puck in front of the net where Nikolai Zherdev was waiting for it. Zherdev got his stick on the puck in the crease and threw it off of an Avs defenseman and in. It was a lucky bounce, but that is what happens you generate pressure in front of the crease. Good things happen. 1 minute and 8 seconds into the game and the Rangers already had two goals.

Throughout the rest of the first, the Rangers fed off of the early momentum generated and simply out hustled and out skated the Avalanche. This was most apparent on the 2nd Tortorella goal of the night and 3rd in the first period. Off of the draw in the Avs zone, the puck was drawn back to the point and Mara unloaded a blast. Korpikoski started to crash the net but saw the puck was going wide of the goal and instead changed direction and outhustled the Avs defense behind the net. He got the puck and threw it in front to also crashing Petr Prucha. Prucha smashes it home on a picture perfect hustle play. This was Peter Budaj's early exit point.

The last goal of the 1st came from another Tortorella type play. Zherdev with his fancy skating gained the zone and circled back to the wing. As he circled back he saw Marc Staal just gaining the zone with his stick raised well above his head asking, no, begging Zherdev to feed him for a slapshot. Tortorella has gotten on his d-men over the past week to get more involved with the offense and jump into the plays. This was a perfect example of it as Zherdev hit Staal in stride, and Staal uncorked a rocket towards the net. Waiting in front was a lone Scott Gomez who deflected it past Raycroft and in.

4 First period goals
3 Tortorella goals
19,800 ecstatic Rangers fans in the Garden and thousands more around the nation.

The last time the Rangers scored 4 goals TOTAL in a game was back on February 11 vs the Capitals. This was only the 4th time they scored 4 goals in 2009.

Full game highlights:


The large first period lead allowed the Rangers to coast through the rest of the game. Early in the second they scored a power play goal while the Avs were down 2 men. After a scrap in front of the net, Naslund caused a turnover before the Avs could clear the zone. This lead to the puck bouncing over to Gomez who after one pass attempt failed, threaded a needle through the other side to Drury who had as open of a net as you could get. Had this been 5-5 hockey, I may have given it a Tortorella Goal, but 5-3 and the Rangers should have had the clear advantage there.

The lone blemish of the Rangers night came off of a Dmitri Kalinin gaffe where he had the puck bounce over his stick and through his legs on a Milan Hejduk dump in. Ryan Smith picked up the puck and had open ice between him and Lundqvist. After a little Shake & Bake (I'm in the middle of Talledega Nights while writing this), the shutout was gone.

The last Rangers goal came off of pure hustle and caught the Avalanche off guard. Naslund started with the puck in his own end and fed Kalinin on the breakout. Kalinin hit Gomez going up the wing, and then did something that he must have learned over the last week of practices... he bum rushed the net. Not only did he do it, but so did Nigel Dawes. Gomez then dropped the pass back to Naslund and headed straight for Raycroft as well. It was like a jail break blitz on the goalie, and Naslund took advantage, scoring his 20th of the season and giving him 10 straight seasons of 20 or more goals. Razor never had a chance. This was the Ranger's first 6 goal game of the season and their first 6 goal game since 2007. Thank you John Tortorella.

Tort Goals: 4
Others: 2

The Rangers now have four well deserved days off as they face the Fighting Ricky 5 Holes on Long Island on Thursday. Whether or not this was the switch that turned all of the lights on, Saturday night's 6 goal outburst was fun too watch and hopefully a sign of things to come.

Pens Falter, Wings Dominate

Rather than look at the game in general let’s look at how this loss is actually a good thing for the Penguins shall we? Everyone will probably write something about the game and what happened in it to turn the tide. Let me just do that in one sentence.

Malkin missed the penalty shot in the second period.

That’s it. That’s what turned the tide in the game. Nothing more, nothing less. If he scores, the Pens win and I’m on here typing all in caps in celebration.

Anyway, I’ve been thinking a lot about this since we went up 3-0 on the Rangers are were 7-0 in the playoffs. No one is ever going to go 16-0. No one has even gone 8-0 since the Oilers did it in the 80’s. The longer this winning streak went on the more damage it could have potentially caused these young Pens.

How you ask?

Winning gives you a false sense of security. It makes you think that you don’t have to try as hard in order to win. It makes you expect to win rather than working and earning the wins. I’m not saying the Penguins quit in this game at all. The Rangers were the better team tonight, plain and simple.

This loss tonight should do a couple things for the Penguins. First off, the loss will remind them of the feelings they had last year when they were getting stomped by the Senators. It should remind them how it feels to lose and remind them of what they were doing in the first seven games in order to win. It should give them the bad taste in their mouth to go out and play harder just so they don’t have to see the opposition with smiles on their faces.

The loss tonight will shatter any sense of superiority that these young Pens might have developed during these playoffs. There was some tensions that boiled over at the end of the game tonight, but since the next game isn’t until Sunday, I’m not as worried about a momentum carry over. Expect the Penguins to come out absolutely flying in Game 5.

Henrik Lundqvist will have to be ready to face a barrage of shots and what will no doubt be a very hostile Mellon Arena crowd. Man I wish I was going to be there for this. At least I’ll be able to watch this one and not have to worry about listening to it on a severe delay and having Gopher ruin any suspense like tonight.

I’m also not totally upset about the loss tonight because if you’ll recall I only asked the Penguins to split in NY and head home up 3-1. As a Pens fan, I can’t really be that upset about getting what I asked for right? How often does something like that happen? I wish it were that simple about winning championships. If it were you’d only see the Red Sox, Patriots and Penguins winning everything every year. (Yes, I grew up near Boston. I became a Pens fan when the first game I ever saw when I was about 5 or 6 was a Bruins/Pens game and Mario Lemieux went nuts and the Penguins won easily. The love affair began that young and hasn’t ever faltered.)

At any rate, I hope we pull this off on Sunday and can get some time to rest up before the next round. I’d also just like to add that I’d love very much to see the Canadiens come back and at least force a Game 7. Main reason being that I want the Pens next opponent to be beaten and battered, especially since both of those teams went the full seven games in their opening series. This would mean that provided the Penguins win in Game 5, that they would have played nine total games in the playoffs and if Montreal forces Game 7 the winner would have played 14 games. That’s the only reason I want Montreal to come back.

Let’s just hope we take care of business on Sunday.

As for the Red Wings, there's not much to say about this one. Johan Franzen singehandedly beat the Colorado Avalanche. Franzen scored 9 goals in the series which was the combined total of what the Avs did in four games.

The Avs were terrible in every game in this series and didn't deserve to even be on the same ice surface as the Wings.

Jose Theodore finished the series with a GAA probably over 10. I don't have the patience to figure this out and nor do I care. Needless to say, he was awful. In game 4 he let up 3 on 15 shots in the first period and was pulled....again. The guy I really feel for in this series was Peter Budaj who came in and faced a shooting gallery already down by and insurmountable amount.

I wonder if anyone in the Avs organization made a call to Patrick Roy. I'm not saying he would have stepped in and won the series, but he at least would have skated down to the other end of the ice to kick the crap out of Chris Osgood and show his son how to really fight.

In case you haven't seen this by now, here you go.



Anyway, there's not much I can even say about this and my head is throbbing from trying to figure out what went wrong. Complain all you want about injuries and such, but this was beyond any of that. This was a pathetic showing from the 2001 Colorado Avalanche.

In other news, guess what this weekend is? THE KENTUCKY DERBY! Now I haven't had much chance to look over the field, but don't worry I'll have my pick before the race.

I'm merely stating that this is the greatest two minutes in sports. Horse racing doesn't get enough credit. I'll admit, I wasn't a huge fan until a few years ago when Cheech got me hooked in college. I didn't realize everything that went into picking winners and how to chart a race and such. I still don't get it. I understand the logic behind it and know what I need to happen in a race for my schmuck pick to actually come in though.

I never miss the Derby, even before I met Cheech. Anyone who misses the Derby should have their sports watching privileges revoked for 6 months. Yeah, it's that important and fun to watch. What's sad is that the only way horse racing will return to it's glory days and get any attention whatsoever is for there to be a Triple Crown winner. Right now ESPN pays less attention to horse racing than they do the NHL and that's pretty hard to beat. Even the WNBA gets more play on SportsCenter than the NHL. Maybe if the Stanley Cup Finals go seven games, it might make it into the first 15 minutes of the show. Of course it will be behind Game 1 of the NBA conference finals and game 37 of some random baseball game, but hey it's in the first segment of the show.

I need to stop writing for tonight before I get really annoyed. Besides, it's my weekend and I intend on having a lot of fun.

NHL Headlines 3/31/08

This was a long and hectic weekend to say the least. I had plans of getting a post up on Friday, but thanks to laws requiring me to have a license to drive that idea went out the window. No, my license wasn't suspended or anything, I just needed to renew it. Still a complete pain to do.

Anyway, now that my bracket is officially dead thanks to Texas losing to Memphis yesterday I can once again devote all my attention to hockey.

Here's a look at the day's headlines.

Wild Clinch Playoff Berth With Win Over Avs

Congrats Minnesota on a fine season thus far. Marian Gaborik and Pavol Demitra have stayed healthy for the majority of the season for the first time in history it seems like. Figures that the one year I don't take him in the fantasy world, he actually stays healthy. Side note: If you even have someone you want to see injured or miss some time to help your fantasy match-up, drop me a line. I swear I'm a hex. In football alone this season I went through 8 QBs.

Anyway, Minnesota will clinch the Northwest Division title with one more point or a Colorado loss of any kind. They currently hold a four-point edge over the Avs with two games remaining for each squad.

Here's the highlights from tonight's game.



Yes, the Flames have a snowball's chance in the fiery pits below to win this thing, but they'd need to win out and get a lot of help.

Sharks Kill Fighting Gretzkys Playoff Hopes

Phoenix fans should be very happy with how this team played this season and should be excited about seeing these guys again in the Fall. They now have a goaltender who can actually stop pucks in Ilya Bryzgalov, with a kid in the wings in Al Montoya who will be able to step in and play solid games as well.

The Sharks continue to impress with their play and utter dominance lately. This was the Sharks 17th win in their last 19 games. You always hear talk about teams getting hot at the right time. Well right now there's none hotter than the Sharks.

Joe Thornton has been a machine of late, which is helping one of my other fantasy teams put up a respectable fight in some consolation game. Not even sure which right now as I'm only focusing on knocking Gopher off his pedastol.

Side note: The finals are a two-week marathon. After week 1 I control all 8 of our goaltending categories and hold and 11-4 lead after week one. Really all I need to do now is pick and choose which games I want my goalies to play and get some production out of the offense and I'll be hoisting my mini Stanley Cup in 7 days.

McCarty Makes Return To NHL

Welcome back Darren. I was never a big fan of this guy because I'm not a Wings fan, but you have to give credit to a guy who realized his life was going down the tubes and made the effort to get things back on track.

I have a lot of respect for people, not just athletes, who realize they have a problem of any sort that is ruining their lives and relationships and do something about it.

Britney Spears, if you read this....WAKE THE F%&# UP! YOU HAVE 2 KIDS! STOP BEING A MORON AND GET YOUR LIFE BACK ON TRACK ALREADY! I'M TIRED OF POSTING STORIES ABOUT YOUR SORRY ASS AT WORK EVERY DAY. IF THE FACT THAT K-FED HAS YOUR KIDS DOESN'T DRILL SOME SENSE INTO YOU, I DON'T KNOW WHAT WILL.

Side note: If you haven't seen the Britney Spears episode of South Park go look it up online or Tivo it ASAP. If she doesn't end up suing Comedy Central I'd be shocked. It's that hilarious/wrong.

I have to say something here. I absolutely hate pop music and hate how these supposed "stars" get so much coverage when they screw up. Do you have any idea how many people get DUIs everyday? Why is it news when Spears, or Paris Hilton get caught breaking the law like anyone else? WHO CARES?!

Anyway, back to hockey.

Koivu Could Miss 4 Weeks

What a blow this is to the Canadiens. Compound that with the loss of defenseman Mark Streit and this could potentially be the equivilant of pushing the self-destruct button.

This is the time of year where teams face and overcome adversity, but how will the Habs respond to losing these two guys. Especially Koivu for what could be about a month.

Both players will be evaluated later today and at that time perhaps a timeframe of return will be announced. In any event, both players sat out their game Saturday against Toronto. It's not quite panic time yet, but it could be very soon.

Championship Game/Headlines For 3/24/08

After a couple days off I'm back with your daily dose of headlines. I would have had something up sooner, but I was out of town for the last couple days. It's always good to get away.

Before we get into the headlines here's a quick fantasy hockey update.

Well it's late March so that can only mean one thing. Championship round of fantasy hockey. For the third straight year, yours truly is fighting for the championship.

As you may already know, I'm 0-2 in the championship round in this league and I'm pretty tired of seeing my team fall in the finals. I normally put together one of the best teams in the league and romp through the playoffs only to come up short.

Year 1 I lost to Cheech, and last year Gopher got a lovely scoring change 30 minutes after the conclusion of the last game of the NHL regular season to give him the win.

Heading into Sunday's play I was once again leading comfortably over Cheech. I took him out last year in the semis as well. So I just had to sit back and see who I'd be playing. Gopher's team had been very quiet all week long and as a result he was down big. He decided to dump half his team Saturday evening to give him more players for Sunday in a last ditch effort to defend his title.

Wouldn't you know it, the lucky guy got it done. For a second straight season it'll be Gopher and I battling for the golden trophy to add to our Yahoo trophy cases.

I'd say I'm about due to win this thing finally. As always I'll keep you updated as this goes along.

Crosby To Sit Out Tonight, May Return Tomorrow

As a Pens fan, I am loving this news. Finally we'll get to see Marian Hossa play with Sidney Crosby.

I don't like all the hype the Pens are getting right now. I know they are one of the best teams in the East and when they get Crosby back, they'll be even better. Here's why I don't like it: It makes me think that everyone will think anything less than a Stanley Cup is a disappointment.

I disagree. A first round exit would be a disappointment, but look at how young this team is. If they don't win it this year, they will in a couple years. At the very least they will be a dominant team for years to come.

Check these highlights from Saturday's game against New Jersey.



Connollly Out For Season

If I was a Sabres fan, I wouldn't even want to make the playoffs right now. This makes injury number four in the last two weeks to key players.

If they were to make the playoffs they'd be out quicker than the fat kid in dodgeball. Ryan Miller is a fantastic goalie, but even the best goalies need some help in front of them.

Sorry Buffalo, your season is now officially over.

Bruins' Bergeron Back On Ice After Concussion

As a general hockey fan, this is great to see. I don't root for anyone to get hurt in any sport and this is good news that his career may not be over.

Now, I do blame him for the injury. One of the first things coaches teach about checking, is not to turn your back to try to draw a penalty.

Bad things happen when you turn your back to someone who's already committed to hitting you. Get up against the boards and take the hit and move on.



OK, notice how he looks over his shoulder and then turns ever so slightly and puts on the brakes 3 feet from the boards as Randy Jones throws the hit.

Yes, Jones should have let up when he could only see Bergeron's numbers on his back, but Bergeron shouldn't have turtled .

Forsberg To Play Tonight

Anyone wanna give me 3-1 odds that since Peter Forsberg is playing tonight, he'll sit out the next 2-3 games because of a bum ankle?

There's really not much to say here other than, this is turning out to be a great million dollar investment. Hey Avs management, my ankles are fine and I could give you as many minutes or more than what Forsberg has given you so far. I'll gladly take a million bucks to have a couple personal trainers get me back in shape.

Western Conference First Round Nightmare Scenarios

There is no way I cannot do the Western Conference scenarios after the way the Eastern Conference Nightmares were received. We got a big boost in traffic from Deadspin.com and Greg Wyshynski, of FanHouse and The Fourth Period with his latest article It's Those 190-Foot Goals That Always Getcha

Check it out and scroll down to the end of the article for the link he graciously put to yesterday's Eastern Conference scenarios.

That's enough sentimental stuff. You're hear because you want to see what Gopher and I were able to come up with for the Western Conference. So here you go.

Detroit Red Wings

Let's get sentimental here for a moment shall we? Who didn't stay up late to watch these two teams go at it in the playoffs?

I don't care who you are, Colorado has to be scaring the top teams in the West right now with their deadline acquisitions. They practically re-assembled the cup team of 2000-01.

Here's the reason why Detroit would be a little upset about facing Colorado. These teams absolutely hate each other. Hate may not even be the right word. It's much deeper than hatred. I wouldn't be surprised if Lidstrom had to choke back some bile when talking about the Avs.

Anyone remember this classic bout? Expect more of this if these two see each other in the opening round.



I'm not saying Detroit would lose to Colorado, none of these nightmare scenarios are meant as predictions of winners unless otherwise stated. This pick is more selfish than anything as I would tape every game and watch them during those lonely summer nights without hockey.

San Jose Sharks

The first team that came to mind was the Vancouver Canucks.

Vancouver hasn't exactly lived up to the expectations I thought they would achieve at the beginning of the season, but that still doesn't mean that they don't have one of the best defensive teams in the league.

The problem with Vancouver is that they have no offense to speak of outside of the top line of Henrik Sedin, Daniel Sedin and whoever they decide to put alongside those two.

However, even without the offense and a solid defensive scheme we cannot forget who is backstopping this team. Roberto Luongo.

I would not want to face Luongo in the regular season let alone the playoffs. He may very well be the best goaltender in the league. Here's a fun montage of some of the things Luongo is capable of done to a song from one of my favorite bands, Breaking Benjamin.



Note the final save shown against San Jose. Was it lucky? Of course, but it's things like that that could give the Sharks fits.

Minnesota Wild

How about a classic offense against defense series with the Calgary Flames. Now before you start jumping on me for saying the Flames are all about offense, they do have a much scarier offense than the Wild.

I look at the Wild and I see a team that reminds me a lot of the Devils. They play the same trap system, but the only difference is that Niklas Backstrom is not Martin Brodeur and there in lies the weakness.

On paper there is no question that Miikka Kiprusoff is the all around better goaltender even if he hasn't had the best of seasons.

Calgary isn't just going to have to bank on Kipper in net. They also have one of the most dynamic players in the league in Jarome Iginla. These two guys are capable of taking over a series in an instant. Let's not forget that they lost in the Stanley Cup Finals in Game 7 against Tampa Bay.

Here's some highlights of that great series in 2004.



(Side note: For those of you who remember Game 6 of that series in Calgary you'll remember it went to overtime and there was some controversy. Martin Gelinas appeared to be the first player in NHL history to score the series deciding goal in every round when he appeared to get the puck behind the Bulin Wall. The "goal" went upstairs for review and came back down as inconclusive which was a total crock. Congrats Flames fans, I award the Stanley Cup to you. I still believe the NHL went into a lockout because the Bolts won the Cup and that it had nothing to do with money whatsoever. That's my opinion and this is my blog so deal with it.)

Anaheim Ducks

I've been saving my personal pick at this very moment that is subject to change in the upcoming playoff previews for both conferences. The team the Ducks do not want to see in the first round is the Dallas Stars.

Anaheim earned their second win of the season against Dallas tonight in a hard fought 2-1 game. This was the seventh meeting of the season between the two clubs and Dallas still holds the 5-2 advantage.

This could quite possibly be the best series of the entire first round if we are lucky enough to witness this.

Who wouldn't get excited about J.S. Gigeure going up against Marty Turco? You'd have to be legally dead to not get pumped up to see two of the top goalies in the league go at it for potentially seven games. Think back to last year and how much fun the Canucks/Stars series was that went the distance.

Here's some Marty Turco heroics.



There is no more physical team top to bottom than the Ducks. That's what got them the Cup last year, but the Stars have had the Ducks number this year and could easily represent the Western Conference in the Cup finals this year.

Of course this will come down to whether or not Turco can shake the playoff demons that have haunted him over the years. By no means am I blaming last year on him, he played great. He just came out on the short end of things.

So there you have it. The nightmares for the Western Conference and the Eastern Conference. Time to sit back and wait to see how many of these nightmares become a reality as we go down the stretch to the playoffs.