Zherdev Sparks Rangers to Victory
October 25th, 2008 10:27 AM
Nikolai Zherdev returned to Columbus, where he was booed by the crowd every time he touched the puck. Who do they think he is? Sean Avery? But the young right-winger had the last laugh, scoring a goal and assisting on two as he led the Rangers over the Blue Jackets (led by a grizzled, 28-year-old Manny Malhotra), by a score of 3-1.
The Rangers didn’t look good early on. Michal Rozsival coughed the puck up in the first period, but Dmitri Kalinin covered up for his teammate with a nice defensive play. But then it was Kalinin’s turn to screw up. He couldn’t control a bouncing puck, and Jakub Voracek grabbed it, tipped his helmet, said thank you very much and skated in on Henrik Lundqvist all by his lonesome and put the Blue Jackets on the board. The Blueshirts had a five on three soon after that and couldn’t have looked worse. They were caught flat-footed and knocked back on their heels when Columbus attacked and skated …