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Rangers Run Over by Caps
By Jeff Freier on November 9th, 2008 11:11 AM |
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The Washington Capitals came out of the locker room, revved up their engine and ran over the Rangers. The Caps outhustled, outhit and outscored the Blueshirts, winning 3-1.
For the first half of the game, Washington steamrolled over the Rangers. The Blueshirts didn’t know what hit ‘em. They ran over Henrik Lundqvist twice (with no penalty called either time), and Alex Ovechkin ran over everybody (but especially Marc Staal). Lundqvist (25 saves) was the only thing keeping the game close. The Capitals scored a crazy, flukey goal to take a 1-0 lead in the first. The puck ricocheted off the crossbar, off the top of the glass, back down off the net, off Lundqvist’s head and then bounced off Brooks Laich’s stick into the net. You won’t see that again. Later in the period, Washington scored another controversial goal, when Tom Poti (ouch) put in a rebound after the goal post was dislodged from its mooring. The play was reviewed, and the goal was upheld, because the net was not completely dislodged. Lundqvist was furious, and argued the call. If there were any dirt around, he would have kicked it at the ref Lou Piniella-style.
Washington completely dictated the flow of the game at first and even had the referees on their side. Penalties should have been called when they ran over Lundqvist, they had too many men on the ice, which wasn’t called, Blair Betts was crosschecked in the face, which wasn’t called, and they even had an icing mysteriously not called. Something fishy’s going on in DC. But with all that, the Rangers picked up their game in the second period. And they finally got on the scoreboard in the third on a power play goal by Aaron Voros. It was his first goal since he scored in Detroit weeks ago. And it deflected off Poti’s stick and into the net. I think we’ve seen that before.
The Blueshirts had two golden opportunities to tie the game in the last period, but couldn’t come through. Chris Drury made another great play while killing a penalty and was awarded a penalty shot. But goalie Brent Johnson poked the puck away with his stick while Drury was making his move to make the save. And with two-and-a-half minutes left in the game, the Rangers had a power play but they couldn’t take advantage. Washington added an empty-netter, and New York went on to lose.
Things didn’t look good from the start for the Rangers, and they could never fully recover. Next game: Monday against the Oilers.
There are currently 2 responses to “Rangers Run Over by Caps”
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Korpikoski is brought up from Hartford and will play against Oilers. Oilers are an average team.Should be a good test to see how the Rangers fare against them.Rangers should be fired up after being outclassed by Caps and Korpikoski had a hat trick last game.As for D -How about a 7th dman. They should bring up Corey Potter and spell the d-corps some and keep them fresh.Potter is NHL quality and ready.Why not use him and send Prucha down, keep Korpikoski and get him the ice time to get in the scoring groove.We need the production.
dx – In the long run, your note about a 7th dman is a good one, not only because these guys could use some rest occasionally, but because it’ll serve a guy like Potter well to get his feet wet at the NHL level. I wouldn’t like to see him sitting on the bench on the NHL roster, but I wouldn’t mind seeing him shuttle back-and-forth a bit. of course, this might affect the players arbitration eligibility in the coming seasons, i’m not sure.
As for the Korpedo, it’s about friggin’ time! Listen, I like Tom Renney, and I think he’s done more good than bad for this franchise, but there’s no question that sometimes he’s too cerebral for his own good. Some might say that his intellectual approach to the game has made this team soft, but I’m not one who completely subscribes to that theory. My biggest gripe with the coach is his tendency to over-think his lineup. Mixing lines and looking for chemistry isn’t a bad thing, but it becomes disadvantageous when you lose sight of the forest for the trees. If you’ll recall, the Rangers had four lines that looked great on paper when they started the season with Gomez centering Drury and Naslund and found “playstation” magic with Dubi, Voros, and Zherdev. Korpikoski was a final critical piece, as he completed the puzzle on the third line between Cally and Dawes. But it seems one maneuver was made to jumpstart one guy, then another maneuver was made to jumpstart another, and suddenly you’ve got your team’s captain playing between your two game-time-decisions (prucha and dawes) and praying for a powerplay or pk (where he’s done all of his scoring).
I have no crystal ball, but here’s hoping that Korpedo’s recall means a return to those earlier lines, which I feel we gave up on far too quickly. The way I see it, 3 out of 4 lines looked dynamic in those early games, and even the ugly ducklings on the “top” line made a triumphant debut in Prague. It’s not like anything Renney’s tried since has yielded better results.