Rangers 3, Devils 0

Felt a little like April 2008 didn't it?

You have to admit, the most overrated goaltender in NHL history was looking sharp the first 24 minutes of the game. You had the feeling it was going to be one of those 0-0, 1-1 shootout affairs. However, the Devils unraveled and the Rangers scored 3, two of them in a span of two minutes.

Dubinsky and Callahan are getting hot at the right time. Hell, Callahan has been hot. He has 21 goals on the year now and has been one of the best, if not the best player since Torts arrived. Dubi, by the way, was 9-0 in the faceoff circle tonight.

Sean Avery was doing his thing. Whether it was making the overrated one take cheap crotch shots, or making the other two fools go after him, he was doing his job and playing hard. All that was missing from him was a goal. He did have an assist on the Cally goal which was set up by a beautiful look from Scott Gomez, who was effective as well. Was that actually him throwing around the body? OK, so Holik made him look awfully small a couple of times, but hey, Gomez was throwing the body!

Lundqvist owns Brodeur. Talk to me about his wins record when he gets another 25 without the shootout. Until then I don't want to hear it.

Penguins 4, Rangers 3

What'd you expect? The game was at Pittsburgh.

There was no chance in coming back thanks to an atrocious 5 minute major call that was a direct response to the GM meetings a few weeks back, where staged fights and head shots were discussed. The rules are put in place in the offseason, not midseason! This is the second call we've seen against the Rangers related to those meetings since. The last one was when Dan Girardi was given an instigator and a misconduct for starting a fight after a clean hit a few games ago. It's too bad the refs have to decide a game and not let the players play.

No one's beating the Penguins. It's very frustrating. Crosby, Malkin, pig-face, Orpik- I can't stand them.

The Rangers played soft the early in the game. Pittsburgh was running them all over the place. Is it legal to push a guy from behind without the puck? Apparently so, the Pens were doing it all game and getting away with it.

Normally I don't root for injury, but I was so hoping Brooks Orpik took out his own knees by going after Drury early in the third period. Too bad he's ok- would've served him right.

Screw Crosby for crying about wanting an empty net goal with 4 seconds left after he got interfered with. Screw Malkin for taking a slapshot on the ensuing faceoff. The game is over.

I hate the Penguins. More than the Devils and Flyers. Ask me again after Monday night's game when I have to stare at Parise's mug and watch him complain to the officials.

Things get a little too interesting if the Panthers beat the Stars tonight.

My Citifield Seats?

Credit to the folks over at baseball-fever. If you are looking for updates on Citifield construction and ticketing information, this is the place, period. Less than a week until the first exhibition game (unless you count the St. John's- Georgetown game that's happening tomorrow). Never have I looked forward to a baseball season more than this one. The Rangers usually hold off the anticipation, but unless they get hot and go on a nice little playoff run, I'll be happy with freezing my butt off at some April night games in the new place.

Thrashers 5, Rangers 4, SO

Uh, what was I saying about our shutdown pair after the last game? -4 apiece tonight. Ouch.

We got our first Torts rant of the season tonight and rightfully so.

0-for-6 in the shootout. Seems fitting they come away without a win after blowing a 4-1 late second period lead.

A win vs this non-playoff team would have set up an interesting game on Saturday afternoon between two teams with the exact same record. However, it is the Penguins now that have the one extra win, crucial for a tiebreaker. Watch the Rangers win in OT to even up the records again. Doubt it, the way the Pens are playing. Plus, it's the Igloo, and to top it off, an afternoon game. A recipe for disaster.

Rangers 2, Wild 1

This game was anything but Wild. It looked like a flashback to the Tom Renney era. The only thing entertaining about this one was the first period. With all the rough stuff, it did not seem like this was only the tenth ever meeting between these two teams. But what was Owen Nolan thinking?

You had to figure Avery was going to get involved with a guy by the name of Clutterbuck.

How about that Lauri Korpikowski? Had one shining moment on the PK that Korpikowski. It's actually a good thing Korpikowski did not play that much in the game, so we did not have to be subjected to more botching of his name.

Let's just accept the fact that we are scarred by that 5-goal game and Marian Gaborik will score at least one in every game he faces the Rangers. Pray he does not sign with an Eastern Conference team as a free agent over the summer.

Mike Sauer played a very solid game in his NHL debut. He was patient and looked like he knew what he was doing.

I'm loving Staal-Girardi as a shutdown pair.

The Rangers now have the exact same record as the Penguins in a tie for 5th. That will be a monster game this weekend in the house of horrors, the Igloo. Do you want to fall to 6th and face the Caps in the first round?

Post vacation recap: 4 wins, 2 losses

Not bad, considering the Mets collapse the last time I was on another continent.

A shitty first period. Then a line change. I swear, the rest of the Rangers in 60 program featured every shift by Avery-Gomez-Callahan. They were amazing.

On a call back home to my parents on Saturday night, the only thing I heard was my Dad in the background: "Rangers suck." That's all I needed to know about this one. Colton Orr threw some bombs on Riley Cote before getting taken down which was the only highlight from the Rangers in 60 broadcast.

Good thing the NHL Network replays the NBC game of the week on Monday, in a two hour format, with none of the intermission stuff. Makes recording easier and saves some DVR space. Avery scores again and the power play? Wow!

Lesson when recording Rangers in 60 if you know you will miss the action at least a day after the game: record the show the next morning, not the 11pm version following the night game. The first 30 minutes or so of my recording was "Ranger profiles: Drury 23" or whatever the program is called. I did not even bother watching. A bad goal that gave Montreal a point, which could be big. At least they won in the shootout, but remember that one point by the Canadiens.

I was back in the States to watch this game in its entirety. Very entertaining. Sweet breakaway goal by Cally. Buffalo is just about done.

There's no way they can lose another game, right? Wrong. Ottawa is on fire, but it is likely too little too late for them. Ruutu is still an ass, but I still would have signed him this past offseason once we lost out on Avery. Nice to see a local kid who was a Ranger fan growing up score the game winner. If you watched him on the postgame, you could really see his excitement. Must have been pretty cool.

Off to Spain

There will be no updates on the blog for over a week, as I am off for spring break to Spain. Four Ranger games that I will miss. That will still leave 11 when I return. It's not like I'm leaving with the Rangers having a 12 point lead over the 9th seed with 16 games left and I return with 3 games left in the season. Let me explain.

2007. September. Not much more you can say. A vacation in Croatia, along the coast, while the weather was still warm. A seven game lead with 17 to play. The Mets had a weekend series with the Phillies at Shea. They lose the Friday night game. My flight was on Saturday. The lead was down to 5 1/2. A two week vacation would bring me back in time to see the final weekend series vs the Florida Marlins. No sweat, but damn why couldn't they win that Friday night game?

Since I was going to a place that had zero interest in baseball I decided to completely forget about all things American, including baseball, and simply catch up when I return. A bunch of Mets FastForward's were set on the DVR, waiting for me. While I was away I could not help but think a week or so into the trip: have the Mets clinched the division?

Arriving back in the States on Friday, September 28th, I turned away from every newsstand I passed at JFK, avoiding headlines. Same on the buses- don't look at the newspaper the person across from you is reading. Made it home with no clue as to what transpired the past couple of weeks. Turned on the TV first thing and brought up the DVR menu. All the Mets FastForwards were there. Let's watch two weeks of baseball in a matter of a few hours leading right up to the first pitch of that Friday night Marlins series opener.

While I was away, I was expecting playoff tickets to arrive, with my mother-in-law, a converted pessimistic Mets fan since I came into the picture, on hand to receive the pickup. She was at work when we arrived. My wife calls her to let her know we made it back. I'm watching the Saturday 9/15 Phillies game, right where I left off two weeks ago, the Mets comfortably ahead 5 1/2 with two more games to put a nail in the Phillies coffin.

"Did the tickets arrive?" my wife says to her mother on the phone.

A pause. A gasp from my wife.

"Oh my God." That's all it took.

I watch now fully expecting the Mets to blow a 3-2 lead late in that Saturday game and they did. Then a Sunday loss to complete the sweep. I breeze through ever disaster against the Nationals and Marlins. Joel Pineiro absolutely shutting down the Mets in a makeup game vs the Cardinals. I returned to find the Mets in a tie with the Phillies for the division with three games to play.

The moral of the story is if you care about your team, don't go on vacation at the end of the season. For me I don't know what was worse- the absolute shock to go from 5 1/2 up to tied in the standings, or the slow torture that was Mets baseball those two weeks. Maybe I was better off.

NHL GM Meetings

The NHL GMs wrapped up their second day of meetings today. All the talk is about fighting. There were rumors that they were going to talk about the points system, but there is nothing to report so far.

Nothing will change. Just look at the races around the league. Everything is so close, and because you give a point to a team that loses in overtime you are naturally going to have these down-to-the-wire finishes. It's what the league wants.

Ken Holland of Detroit had an interesting idea that we can only hope sparks fixing of the points system. He suggested that tiebreakers in the standings should be decided by regulation wins, not just wins alone. 100% agree. Can anyone take it a step further and realize how ridiculous it is to award the same amount of points in the standings for a regulation victory and a shootout victory? Or how about awarding a total of 2 points some games, and 3 points in games that go to overtime? It's all nonsense.

The solution is simple. Devalue the shootout just a bit. There is talk about awarding 3 points for the winner in regulation and 2 points for a win in OT or shootout, with the loser getting 1 point in extra time. That's a step. It's consistently awarding 3 points every game.

That being said, what are the standings going to look like? Teams will have well over 100 points by now. You will be 9 points back of a playoff spot, but then you have to stop yourself and realize that it's only three wins away. The solution is simple. Go back to the old days of hockey, pre-overtime point.

Like it or not, the shootout is here to stay. I hate it, but it's not going anywhere. However, simply devalue the gimmick by going to the pre-OT-bonus-point format where the winner gets 2 points and the loser nothing if the game ends in normal hockey fashion. We have no ties anymore, so instead of a point each, you move on to the shootout, where the winner will get 1.5 points in the standings and the loser a half point. Fractions in the standings, you say? The other major North American sports don't seem to have a problem with it.

Back to 2 points awarded for every game. Back to .500 actually meaning .500. Back to 100 points in a season meaning you are a pretty good team if you get there. Take a look at the standings (sorted by percentage) today if the NHL was using this format. W and L are for wins and losses in regulation or overtime. SW and SL are shootout results. Notice the Rangers benefit from the shootout and are on the outside looking in:

TM	W	L	SW	SL	PTS	PCT		TM	W	L	SW	SL	PTS	PCT
BOS	39	18	4	6	87	0.649		SJS	39	18	3	4	84.5	0.660
NJD	37	21	5	2	82.5	0.635		DET	37	21	6	2	84	0.636
WSH	37	23	3	4	80.5	0.601		CGY	37	25	2	2	78	0.591
PHI	32	24	3	5	71	0.555		CHI	34	23	2	5	73.5	0.574
CAR	33	29	3	3	72	0.529		VAN	31	25	3	6	69.5	0.535
FLA	31	26	3	6	69.5	0.527		CBJ	29	28	4	5	66.5	0.504
MTL	28	26	7	5	69	0.523		NSH	29	30	4	3	65.5	0.496
PIT	30	28	5	4	69.5	0.519		EDM	28	29	4	4	64	0.492
NYR	25	28	9	5	66	0.493		MIN	28	31	4	2	63	0.485
BUF	26	29	7	4	64.5	0.489		DAL	26	31	5	4	61.5	0.466
OTT	24	34	2	5	53.5	0.412		ANA	28	34	3	2	61.5	0.459
TOR	22	34	4	7	53.5	0.399		LAK	25	30	4	7	59.5	0.451
ATL	21	40	4	1	48.5	0.367		STL	24	31	5	5	58	0.446
TBL	19	37	2	8	45	0.341		PHX	26	36	2	2	56	0.424
NYI	19	40	3	4	44.5	0.337		COL	21	36	8	1	54.5	0.413

Is this so hard to follow? Think about this if Florida and Pittsburgh go to overtime in their game tonight, meaning both gain points in the standings.

Hurricanes 3, Rangers 0

OK, so now you see the flip side of the Sean Avery acquisition. From time to time he'll throw himself at somebody's feet in an effort to look like he slipped, and sometimes the refs won't buy that, like last night, as he took two penalties that pretty much nullified Ranger power plays. It probably would not have made much difference anyway.

At 2-0, the game was pretty much over, despite there being enough time left in the game. You just had that sense they were not coming back.

No relief from the telecast on Versus as you get to listen to the Carolina play-by-play man call the action.

I know you are sprawled on the ice and really have no other choice, but does Brandon Dubinsky think he's going to get away with something by pushing the puck towards the goal with his glove?

Despite what the NHL newspaper/website standings say, fear not at being a point out of the playoff picture like everyone is saying this morning. It's still pretty much a dead heat and there are plenty of games left between the six teams locked in the battle for four spots.

Rangers 4, Bruins 3

The Rangers finally win an NBC game this season. The monkey is off their back. Now, let's get another one next week. Can NBC stop picking the Rangers for their game of the week already? Isn't there a Penguins game next Sunday or something?

The one had its ugly moments. Emrick said it best; the ice was tilted. However, Manny Fernandez was everything Tuuka Rask was not the last time the Rangers played Boston.

How soon before we see Derek Morris and Wade Redden swap ice time? Redden played about 24 minutes, while Morris was around 14. Redden had another bad day.

How many 1-0/2-1 Ranger Bruin games have we seen the past couple of seasons? This one was a refreshing change. Frankly I don't care about the odd man rushes the Rangers give up. Henrik will save most of them. Keep the pressure on. Ranger hockey is fun to watch again.

Did Chris Drury get pissed off at that elbow to the head or what? He wasted no time going after that guy. Too bad the fight did not develop into much. That's what happens when you get the lightweights involved.

Pittsburgh won yet again. Huge game against Carolina tomorrow on Versus. I hope Emrick and Eddie O follow the Rangers, otherwise we'll have to get the mute button ready for Beninati.

Rangers 4, Islanders 2

Torts said it, "an ugly win." No one would disagree. A win is a win however, and with so many teams just a couple of points away from each other in the playoff race, you take it.

Sean Avery was back and was his usual self. You know you missed him. Interesting to see him get the spot with Giannone in the pregame show. Remember that incident when Dallas was at the Garden back in October?

Nik Antropov showed some quick wrists. He looks like he can be lazy at times. Maybe that's because he's so damn huge- you can't expect someone at that size to be quick on skates like a Nigel Dawes.

Derek Morris looks like he can be one of our best D-men skating-wise. However, please lay off those hard passes to your D-partner right in front of our own net.

I will miss Prucha and Dawes. Hope they do well in Phoenix. So much for that youth movement before the lockout. Fedor Tyutin was the first kid called up. He was traded. Now add a couple of more key pieces in Dawes and Prucha. All for a likely first round elimination, all for a couple of rentals. I know what you're saying- Prucha and Dawes upcoming contracts would make them unaffordable given the state of the team's salary cap. Well, who's fault was that for not planning to pay their kids?

Season subscribers got their playoff ticket invoices today. A 76 percent increase in the blues for the first round. The second round jumps up only 8 percent from the first round. What does that tell you? It tells you ownership just hopes to make the playoffs, knowing that they will likely get knocked out in round 1, so they are collecting whatever they can get on playoff money by jacking up the first round price and leveling off after that.