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Official New York Rangers Thread


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There used to be another one of these, but I was unable to find it. I think it went wherever threads go when they die. Anyway, this is the place for discussing your favorite original six team. Come her to discuss news, results, updates, opinions, and everything else involving the Blueshirts. Singing the goal song is always encouraged.LET'S GO RANGERS!!

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The Rangers have certainly had their issues this year. With the acquisition of Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, great things were expected of this year's team and there certainly was a lot of hype. Yet, despite a glorious first game (that I was at, and it indeed was beautiful) the Rangers struggled early in the season. It seemed for a while that they were literally unable to score goals. Many of their early games ended up 1-0 or 2-1; they were close and low scoring games. The issue seemed to be chemistry and cohesion as a group. It remained unclear what the structure of our lines should be. Many combinations were attempted and all had mixed results. Though we were unable to score, we were often saved from defeat by the brilliance of Lundqvist early in the season. He boasted an amazing goals against average at the same time that the Rangers held the worst scoring average in the league. It was an odd time.Then things seemed to change. I think this is the result of two things. The first of which was finding a line that really clicked. The Shanahan, Drury, Avery line came together and seemed to work. The aggression and annoyance of Avery, the brilliance as well as the wrist shot of Shanahan, and the pure skill and sense of Drury made for a lethal combination. The second aspect of our success was Jagr. I maintain that Jagr is always the central force of our team. When he plays well, we play well and when he doesn't, we rarely do. He is such a physical force on the ice and it often takes at least two defense men to keep him covered. He draws penalties, creates opportunities, and to say that he can score is an understatement. He seemed to come into his own after some early struggles in the season. He has been and remains a hot and cold player for the past two years or so, but he clearly still has the talent to control a game. Yet we were still plagued by several injuries. Straka and Avery have both been out for long periods of time, and Shanahan as missed several games due to various injuries. Avery's latest set of injuries to his wrists hurt the line that came together. Fortunately, we soon after discovered a first line that worked. After an early attempt with a Gomez-Jagr combination which was scrapped early on for a reason that I really am not certain of, many combinations were attempted to suit Jagr. Even the young Dubinsky was paired with Jagr on the first line (there is a pretty hilarious picture of Jagr in the early 90's with his long hair and a young, probably 12 year old Dubinsky). After experimenting, we again found a line that seemed to make sense. Jagr, Gomez, Straka was able to come together after Straka returned from an injury. This has been our most successful scoring line as of late and I have high hopes for it. Gomez more than any other player has been our most consistent point maker.I believe our recent struggles are the fault of the continuing injury to Avery and persistent injuries to Shanahan (who has been in and out of games, but has not been 100%) as well as the somewhat shocking struggles of Lundqvist. Our goalie's father was seriously sick recently and was in and out of surgery. It has been suggested that this has hurt Lundqvist mentally and he has been somewhat unable to focus. I believe that he simply needs to get back his confidence. He needs a shutout to remind him that he's still one of the best goalies in the league. When we get our team fully back together, and we have our Jagr-Gomez-Straka and our Shanahan-Drury-Avery lines at full strength, and we have Lundqvist back to his true self, and we have some of our great youngsters working hard such as Dubinsky and Dawes, I think we'll be a force to be reckoned with. We have to make up a little ground to be strong going into the race for the playoffs, but I have high hopes for this Rangers team.

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I will admit I have not seen that many Rangers games. From what I have seen, they have a similar problem to St. Louis. They have a good collection of offensively gifted forwards playing a defensive system. I know this isn't the entire problem, but I (and probably Gary Betman) would love to see them open it up a bit.

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I will admit I have not seen that many Rangers games. From what I have seen, they have a similar problem to St. Louis. They have a good collection of offensively gifted forwards playing a defensive system. I know this isn't the entire problem, but I (and probably Gary Betman) would love to see them open it up a bit.
I just think the Blues need another season to gel, really.Oh, and if they'd stop approaching 5 on 3s like the objective is to pass the puck 50 times before taking a shot, that'd be great too.back to the rangers. I haven't watched much either, but I want LLY to post more in the hockey forum and less in the religion forum.
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back to the rangers. I haven't watched much either, but I want LLY to post more in the hockey forum and less in the religion forum.
Will do.Well, it's a pretty good thing that we won this game. It would have been horribly embarrassing had we lost since Buffalo had come in losing 9 in a row and missing most of their best players. We had just got Avery back and Shanahan was in the lineup as well. All in all, I think we played a decent game.Our first period was our best, in my opinion. We skated extremely well and controlled the puck for the vast majority of the time. We only left it with a 1-0 lead, but we had plenty of chances and gave the Sabres almost none.Our second period wreaked of lack of discipline. We, as we often do, took a lot of crappy penalties that really hurt our ability to put offense together. We spend about half the period on the PK, and actually had to face a nearly 2 minute 5 on 3. Somehow we were able to kill the penalties, but it was by the skin of our teeth. Sloppiness on defense led to a Buffalo rush which game them their only goal of the game. I thought the third period was decent and we limited Buffalo's chances while controlling the puck pretty well.I was happy to see Avery skate well. He literally just came of the DL and has been out for most of the season. Hopefully he'll quickly get back into his groove since our record with Avery vs without him is shocking. Shanahan went somewhat unnoticed in this game, and he's probably still not 100%. I was glad that Dubinsky scored. I said it before, but I have high hopes for the Dubes, Daws, Prucha combination. Gomez, as usual, was amazing and Drury didn't disappoint. I was also happy to see Straka break out a few times, skate well, and put some good moves on the defense. He's certainly an extremely talented player and it's no wonder that we suffered without him in the lineup.Lundqvist also had another good game. Hopefully he's over his shaky period.
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I was also happy to see Straka break out a few times, skate well, and put some good moves on the defense. He's certainly an extremely talented player and it's no wonder that we suffered without him in the lineup.
You know, we want to get together a man-games missed fantasy hockey league. He'd go #1 overall, guaranteed.
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Martin Havlat and Pavel Demitra would be hot on his heals. Sami Salo would be up there as well.
Demitra's line would be the hottest man-games lost line in the NHL.
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You know, we want to get together a man-games missed fantasy hockey league. He'd go #1 overall, guaranteed.
Dan Boyle anyone.He, Cheechoo and Sakic have killed my season
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Meh. Loss to Boston in a shootout. We haven't been particularly successful at shootouts this season. Nor do I think that we played particularly brilliantly in this game. Again, we took too many penalties and our power plays weren't as effective as they need to be. We just barely scored on our 5-on-3. Gomez and Jagr's goals were pretty fun to watch, and it was nice to see Avery score after going so long without getting a goal. But we need to play slightly better, or at least more disciplined, to give us an easier game tomorrow.

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Meh. Loss to Boston in a shootout. We haven't been particularly successful at shootouts this season. Nor do I think that we played particularly brilliantly in this game. Again, we took too many penalties and our power plays weren't as effective as they need to be. We just barely scored on our 5-on-3. Gomez and Jagr's goals were pretty fun to watch, and it was nice to see Avery score after going so long without getting a goal. But we need to play slightly better, or at least more disciplined, to give us an easier game tomorrow.
What do you think of Girardi? I have him in the Yahoo league because he seemed to be getting a lot of powerplay time and averages 20+ minutes a night.
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Meh. Loss to Boston in a shootout. We haven't been particularly successful at shootouts this season. Nor do I think that we played particularly brilliantly in this game. Again, we took too many penalties and our power plays weren't as effective as they need to be. We just barely scored on our 5-on-3. Gomez and Jagr's goals were pretty fun to watch, and it was nice to see Avery score after going so long without getting a goal. But we need to play slightly better, or at least more disciplined, to give us an easier game tomorrow.
Lundqkvist or however the heck you spell it played really really well today. Your defense is another story...
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Good game to go to. We finally won, and it only took one of the worse performances by an opposing team every to do it. They simply didn't generate any offense whatsoever. It was pretty bad to watch.I'm not sure how I feel about the new line changes. I'm happy to have Shanahan with Dubes and Dawes. I think that those two very talented youngsters could certainly benefit from Shanahan's experience. I think that I would have been happier if Straka had stayed with Jagr and mantained a Drury, Avery, Prucha line. But we'll see how things go. Our power play continued to suck, but we were able to score a bit anyway. Hopefully we'll be able to beat them so easily tomorrow.The Garden was rooting for the Giants the entire time. One of them was even there and got a standing ovation.

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See, this is the type of game that we have to play every night as we make our drive toward the playoffs. We played decently in our last game, but we were sloppy, made too man turnovers in the neutral zone, couldn't connect passes, and took a few penalties.This game, every thing we tried seemed to work. Every shift was aggressive, skated well, passed to each other, and seemed to have the sort of chemistry and purpose that the Rangers have lacked for a little bit. I see this game as a good step. Philadelphia is a good team, so hopefully this was a bit more than a fluke. Hopefully it will become the norm.

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The New York Rangers are a big joke.( honestly , gotta admit it )
they're moving in the right direction. You don't see them trading assets away. They have the cash to pay for free agents, why shouldn't they? I love their new angle, not gonna lie...The leafs would do well to adopt the rangers' philosophy.
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Why ??? I'm actually the biggest hockey fan.I got a satellite !!!! :rolleyes:I don't know where the hype of hates on me is coming from.I had one of two bad days but overall and recently my attitude has changed.Honestly I think people should understand when i'm kidding and when i'm not.And in my previous post I was NOT !I remember thinking ( like in 94-95 or something ) that Glen Sather was a super-GM from his Oilers days ect...Like Brian Burke said , right now with this tough business we're gonna see who's competant and who's not.Glen Sather is not.And Burke is pretty good.I actually like Jagr a lot and don't mind giving him the $ he wants even if he's not having a terrific season but Gomez & Drury contracts are a joke.And it's nto really the fact that these contracts are a joke that amaze me , it's the fact that HE KNOW what happened last time he over-paid for a lot of players.He just know it.YOU CAN'T BUY AN HOCKEY TEAM.YOU CAN BUY A BASEBALL TEAM BUT NOT AN HOCKEY TEAM.WAKE-UP GLEN.

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I actually like Jagr a lot and don't mind giving him the $ he wants even if he's not having a terrific season but Gomez & Drury contracts are a joke.And it's nto really the fact that these contracts are a joke that amaze me , it's the fact that HE KNOW what happened last time he over-paid for a lot of players.He just know it.YOU CAN'T BUY AN HOCKEY TEAM.YOU CAN BUY A BASEBALL TEAM BUT NOT AN HOCKEY TEAM.WAKE-UP GLEN.
He didn't trade anyone away to do it. The Rangers make a ton of cash and those guys are signed long enough to get them playing as a team... I really don't see the problem with what he did.
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