Rangers vs Isles tonight in the Colisseum: LIVE

"We won our last game. If we win again today, that's 2 in a row. If we win again tomorrow, that's what they call a winning streak..... It has happened before."
- Lou Brown, Major League II

I think this was the pregame pep talk Tort gave they boys.

1st Period
Rangers goal- Rangers dump the puck deep into the Isles zone, and both Gomez and Naslund forecheck from opposite sides. The Isle's defender makes a panic pass behind him up the boards right to Nikolai Zherdev. Zherdev coasts in and fires one by Danis through a Gomez screen.

2 guys forechecking= increased pressure = Tortorella goal.

Observations
- There is a clear energy in the crowd and on the ice whenever Avery is out there. The pace is much faster and the inexperienced Isles are visibly scared. Apparently Bruno Gervais never got the memo that Avery was in the lineup tonight. YOU DON'T SKATE WITH YOUR HEAD DOWN BRUNO. Avery gave him a powerful reminder.

- The Rangers now have 3 good defensive pairings. 3 lefties and 3 righties. 3 Offensive d-men paired with 3 defensive D-men. Mara and Rozsival never have to be on the ice together. This pleases me.

- The team has Avery's back. Blake Comeau gives a couple cheap shots to Avery and the other 4 Rangers jump in and start a scrum. Great way to make the vagabond winger feel like he has a home.

- End of the first. 1-0 Rangers

2nd Period

Isle's Goal: McAmmond gets the puck in his own end and moves it through the neutral zone. Both Rangers defensemen collapse on McAmmond and he hits Blake Comeau streaking down the left wing. Comeau gets behind the D and slips one through Hank. Game tied at 1-1.

-Antropov with a golden opportunity to answer quickly and retake the lead and he demostrates great patience by waiting and gets Danis to the ground. He then procedes to hit the crossbar. I think this is a microcosm of Antropov's skill set. Shows some promise but in the end frustrating.

Ranger's POWER PLAY Goal: With the Rangers on the power play because of a Trent Hunter trip, the Rangers capitalize. Tortorella has a power play philosophy called weak side shooting. Basically its hold the puck on one side and once the defense shifts, get it quickly to the other and blast away before the D can get back into position. After a couple weak side rockets on net, Antropov gets the puck on the wing and gives it the Drury at the point. Drury rockets one through a Dubinsky and Redden screen and Danis never had a chance. Rangers now have 5 power play goals over their last 7 games.

Forward and defenseman screening in front of the net = Tortorella goal. Two thus far on the night.

- Callahan, Dubinksy, and Korpikoski are all very much Tortorella type players. Lost of hustle, lots of crashing the net, lots of solid passing. I wouldn't be surprised if Tortorella told Sather that those three weren't allowed to be moved yesterday.

- I've never seen Hank use his stick so much in a game to chip pucks away. He's cleared like 5-6 pucks already that were trickling out front.

-The Rangers have been sacrificing their bodies a ton this game. Tons of shot blocking and diving to get into the passing lanes.

End of 2 and Rangers up 2-1

3rd Period
Rangers Goal: Andy Hilbert collides with Dean McAmmond in the offensive end and both fall down. Zherdev picks up the puck and streaks down ice with Gomez next to him and Naslund trailing. Zherdev peaks back over his shoulder to Naslund and Martinek takes the bait. Zherdev hits Gomez in stride and flicks it into the back of the net.

Isle's collision (Freaking Hilarious) + 3 on 1 = No Tort goal. 3-1 Rangers.

- On the power play I don't want my 6'6" 230 forward on the wing. I want him camped out in front on the net screening like a sumo wrestler. Tort needs to tell Antropov to get himself out front.

Isle's Goal: Jack Hillen and Blake Comeau play give and go up and down the ice. Hillen uses his speed to cut to the net and sneaks one through Hank's pads for his first NHL goal. 3-2 Rangers.

- Blake Comeau looks like he wants to claim that C on his chest that Guerin left behind. He has been vocal all game and has stepped his game up. And remember this, in the land of the blind, the one eyed man is king.

- Every time Rozsival gets the puck at the point, he takes longer than Russ Tyler in the Mighty Ducks shooting the knuckle puck to get a shot off. BLAST AWAY MICHAL.

- The Rangers are not playing scared hockey like they did over the last month and sitting on the 1 goal lead. It's refreshing to see them still attacking the net and not taking the proverbial knee.

- Is there anything more nerve racking than the puck staying in your zone for more than 1 minute? It felt like the Rangers couldn't clear the zone forever and I was ready for a goal against or a stupid penalty. Luckily we averted disaster.

Ranger's POWER PLAY Goal: Thank you Radek Martinek. Isle's turn it over behind the net and Drury gets the puck out to Naslund. Naslund winds up to fire and breaks his stick. Radek Martinek goes to deflect it to the side and instead deflects it over the shoulder of Danis. I'll take it. To be fair, Duby was in the front screening and Danis had no chance to react to a soft deflection.

Power play + broken stick + dumb luck+ a screen out front: These things never happened under Renney, hence: Tort goal. 4-2 Rangers. 3 Tort goals on the night.

- Kyle Okposo is going to be that pain in the ass player that always seems to be around the puck in the years to come. Experience will help him get to the right place at the right time. Right now he's just about half a step away from being potent.

- I'm willing to bet Tort has some sort of rule that each defenseman needs to wind up and let one fire at least once a game. Tons of shooting from the point from the Rangers blueliners.

GAME OVER: RANGERS WIN 4-2...
- Hank with 28 saves in a very solid effort
- 1st Rangers road win since January 16th at Chicago
- Rangers record with Avery in the lineup: 51-23-13
- Rangers 10 goals over the last 2 games... Woohoo

Tort Goal Update Total
Tort Goals -7
Non Tort Goals- 3

And to take this full circle... If we win on Sunday, that's what they call a winning streak... It has happened before.

BREAKING: Avery Already a Ranger?

TSN.ca is reporting that the NY Rangers have demoted recently claimed forward Mark Bell to the Hartford Wolfpack, the Ranger's AHL team. Certainly this could be construed to be pre-emptive to claiming Sean Avery off re-entry waivers from the Stars. This move ought to take up most of what was left of the Rangers salary cap, and will cause Glen Sather to be creative at the trade deadline.

My Take

I have very mixed feelings about this move, if in fact it happens. While Avery is the gritty player that I yearned for a few weeks ago, that was under the Tom Renney regime. Certainly he was the spark that the Rangers needed then, but will his spark be needed now?

Since Tortorella took over, Voros has been scratched a couple of times and Colton Orr is basically invisible. The tough guys that Renney used to try and jump start a stagnant Rangers team have been put onto the back burner over the last three games. Plus, what line is Avery going to fit on?

The last two seasons, he bounced around a bit but was effective on the Jagr line protecting the Rangers star player. Jagr would invariably circle to the right dot and shoot and Avery was in front causing havoc. Jagr is long gone to Siberia and Avery really doesn't fit on any line.

The obvious candidates to be dropped to the 4th line (assuming Avery isn't stuck down there) from an overall talent point of view are Dawes, Prucha, Korpikoski, and Callahan. The problem here is that these are the grinders that are truly excelling under Tortorella's strategy. All of these guys ooze fundamentals and gritty play. It would be hard to rationalize scratching them or dropping them for Avery.

Where he likely ends up: On the Gomez and Naslund line. (Sorry Nigel) I think that this could be his best fit, digging pucks out of the corner and getting them to the front of the net.

Overall Rangers fans will be happy with this move, and while one 6 goal game is nothing to say the turnaround has happened, will Tortorella really mess with the chemistry of the top 3 lines? Time will tell.

Martin Brodeur Is No Better Than Sean Avery

The title on this should be self explanatory, but I'll go into some detail here. Before that, I must apologize for not getting something new up here in a few days. I had a buddy in town for all of last week and it was rather difficult to find the time to be able to sit down and write something up. He left yesterday and now here I am once again.

Anyway, Friday night after the Rangers had turned any normal day into one of my favorite holidays (Devils Elimination Day), Martin Brodeur did one of the most classless acts I have ever seen. I'm not saying this is as bad as Todd Bertuzzi or Marty McSorley, but it's close in terms of tradition.

In the handshake line, Brodeur and Sean Avery gradually got closer and closer. The cameras were fixated on the two as if it was a foregone conclusion that something would go down and it did.

Sean Avery extends his hand to Brodeur and Marty takes the low road and skates on by without accepting the handshake.



I have a serious problem with this. The handshake is one of the longest standing and greatest tradition that the NHL has. How many other professional American sports have this in place? One. The NFL, and even that is just one big sausage fest of hugging. If the teams are going to hug like that after battling each other, here's what I propose.

You get the cheerleaders to travel to road games. You have them compete against each other at halftime. Make it a quick 10 minute game of flag football. You keep records and standings just like you would for the NFL. Once the 10 minute game is over, the girls can hug it out. I can tell you right now that the lines at the urinal would be rather short at the half.

Furthermore, the Super Bowl halftime show continues to get worse and worse every year. I didn't like it when MTV had it before the infamous wardrobe malfunction and I don't like the watered down version we get every year now. Here's how you make the Super Bowl halftime show amazing.

Remember those standings from the cheerleader flag football? You take the top 2 records from the season and have them play a 30 minute game for all the marbles. It can be 30 minutes since halftime at the Super Bowl is about 2 hours long anyway. Once it's over you have a trophy presentation and one final Super Hugoff.

Anyway, back to hockey. The handshake line is one of the greatest sights in all of sports in my opinion. It's a symbol of tradition as guys who battled hard for upwards of seven games meet at center ice to man up one final time. You extend your hand to the guy as a sign of respect for a tough battle. In the handshake line, it doesn't matter who won or lost. All that matters is the respect among warriors.

What Brodeur did was the equivalent of a little kid throwing a temper tantrum when their parents took their favorite toy away. Do I see where Brodeur is coming from on this? Of course, especially after what Avery did in Game 3. Upon further review, I have a slight issue with the stick wagging, but still have no problem with how he as screening Brodeur face to face. None at all.

Brodeur gets all this talk and praise for being such a nice guy and a class act. This now makes two instances where I have lost even more respect for him. The first was two years ago at their practice rink. My parents came down for my father's birthday and we went to a Penguins/Devils game at the old Continental Airlines Arena. The Penguins won, which I was obviously happy about.

The next day we went to the rink where the Devils used to practice to try and get an autograph or a picture for my father. Every player who came off the ice that day stopped to sign stuff for the little kids and whoever wanted one. Not Marty. Brodeur walked right by and was halfway to the locker room when the screaming kids got in his head.

He turned around with an annoyed look on his face, walked back over to where we were standing and sign four things. I'll repeat that. Four. Then walked away. He actually took the card I had, looked at it and handed it back to me and then walked off without signing it. That would have been one of the best gifts I could have ever gotten my father and Marty screwed me and all the kids who look up to him that day.

Maybe he's just getting cranky in his old age and was annoyed that he let up way too many soft goals in the series. I don't know, but it was a disgrace to see him skate past an outstretched hand.

Sean Avery Rule

By now I'm sure you've all seen the highlights of New York Rangers pest, Sean Avery standing in front of Martin Brodeur wagging his stick and such.

If not, here you go and keep your eye on the front of the net:



Since this move the NHL has decided to change the rules on the fly and institute the "Sean Avery" rule where that is now a penalty. The NHL is calling this an intent to instigate an opponent into taking a penalty.

I am in total disagreement with the league on this one for a couple reasons.

First off, there was no rule until 48 hours ago about standing face to face with the goalie to screen him the way Avery was in Game 3. Now, the NHL closed the "loophole" in the middle of the playoffs. If the league has a problem with what happened you address it after the season. You can't go changing or amending the rules in the middle of the playoffs like they did.

Secondly, I don't see what the big deal is. If you are dumb enough to stand with you back to the play knowing that heavy shots are coming your way, go ahead and do it. Also, if you've got the testicular fortitude to stand there like that you should be able to.

It's not like Avery was touching Brodeur or hindering his movement at all. I used to play goal and if someone was screening me, I moved him out of the way. It doesn't take much to move a guy out of the way. A quick little chop at his skate blades and the way is clear again.

If someone was ever standing face to face with me, I'd do the same thing. I also played forward for much of my playing days and after seeing Avery do that, I thought to myself "Why didn't I ever think of that?"

It's such a simple concept. What is the big deal with standing face to face with the goalie so you can see his eyes and know where he's trying to find the puck? If guys are allowed to stand at the top of he crease and block the goalie's sight-line, why does it matter if he's sticking his rear end in his face or standing face to face? A screen is a screen.

It will be interesting to see how Avery is dealt with in Game 4 tonight. As a Penguins fan I don't really like the guy, but I know if he was on the Pens he'd be one of my favorite players in no time. You can hate on Avery all you want, but I'd be willing to bet that most of you would like him too if he suited up for your club.