Anticipation Meets Reality
Most pundits and even a lot of fans, looked at this series against the Pittsburgh Penguins as pretty much a win for the Rangers. The Rangers had won the season series 3-1, with all three wins coming in the last six weeks of the season. By contrast, the Penguins had limped through the second half […]
Road Trip Proves Fruitful For Rangers
The Rangers will return to New York for Friday’s game 5 with a handy 3-1 series lead, and a chance to close out their first round series against the Penguins in five games. You have to go back seven years, to 2008, when they beat the Devils 4-1 in the first round to find the […]
Road to Reclamation
The New York Rangers finished what has to be rated, a successful home and home series with a 2-1 shootout loss to the Penguins in Pittsburgh last night. Gaining 3 of a possible 4 points was huge for their playoff hopes that a week ago looked near cooked. Bouyed by the two recent Sather trades, and a new confidence and […]
Progress Made, Changes Needed
by Mark Owens Despite bowing out in round two again and perhaps wasting their final season with Hall-of-Famers-to-be Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan, the Rangers’ season was mostly successful, due to the development of rookies Marc Staal, Brandon Dubinsky, Nigel Dawes and Ryan Callahan. Lauri Korpikoski scored a goal in his NHL debut Sunday, and is one of several rookies with a chance to make […]
Game 5 Is Alive
An independent observer of the Rangers-Penguins Eastern Conference Semifinal series could easily jump to the conclusion that the Rangers have been thoroughly outclassed in this series, and that a win for Pittsburgh on Sunday is all but a foregone conclusion. After all, the Rangers lost an almost unlosable game in Game 1 when they gave […]
Stop Diving Sidney!
by Mark Owens At 5’11, 200 pounds, Crosby is one of the most powerful, explosive skaters in the NHL, yet he crumpled to his knees when 180-pound Straka leaned on him Friday night, drawing a penalty. Heck, even featherweight Petr Prucha doesn’t hit the ice that easily. The fact that the referees called such a marginal penalty […]
Penguins Up Next
So it’s going to be Rangers vs Penguins for the matchup in the Eastern Conference Semifinals, and we’ll likely have to hear endless gushing over the play of Sidney Crosby for the next week or two. While there’s no comments dismissing their opponents, like we heard from Sean Avery and Tom Renney last year with respect to the Sabres, there are high expectations for the […]
Penguin On The Menu
Since the Penguins came into the league back in 1967-68, the two teams have met in the finals just three times. In each of those three series, the Penguins have come out victors, winning in 1989 4-0, again in 1992 4-2 on the way to their second Stanley Cup and again in 1996 by the […]
Rangers Buy Kovalev
by Steve Giacobello In what probably won’t be the last attempt to save the most disgraceful season in the history of the New York Rangers, GM Glen Sather, who guaranteed that his team will make the playoffs, increased the Rangers payroll to nearly 80 million by trading for Alexei Kovalev from the cash starved Pittsburgh […]