Why is it called a Bye week?

Good morning, boneheads!

Don’t ask me, I have no idea. And I Googled it too. Some crazy explanations including the one that says it comes from cricket. Really? Does anyone know?

Anyway, it’s just another reason to give you a new post.

The Rangers enter this break with 3 wins in a row, the last one, against Boston, being  most impressive. Best game they played all season, imo. Their next game will be one week from today against Philadelphia. After sending a few youngsters down to play some games in Hartford, they will all have a little vacation. Except Lundqvist, who will participate in the circus called All-Star Weekend.

If Carp comes up with some fresh material in the Athletic, I’ll link it as usual. Otherwise we will use this empty page until it reaches 300 comments or so.

 

UPDATE: You can read and participate in Live Rangers Q&A with Carp

Rangers-3, Bruins-2. Cooscoos wins the contest

Good morning, boneheads!

Congratulations to Coos for winning the ticket contest from last night. He was the only one who predicted the score correctly. This is the second time he does that. Pretty impressive. Please email me at ilbster@yahoo.com

As for the game. Easily the best game they played all season long. Second period especially. 5 in the picture, everyone backchecked, blocked shots, played physical.

Boston is one of those teams that will try to push you around. The Rangers wouldn’t let them do it yesterday. They responded. I didn’t think Wagner hit on Fast was that dirty, but Ryan Strome did, and he responded. Interesting how Wagner was ready to fight Strome but didn’t look that brave when McQuaid decided to participate and pounded him. And that was after McQuaid received a very warm “welcome back” in Boston. That’s hockey, once you’re on the ice, your new teammate is your first priority. Interestingly, penalties like that, sticking up for your teammate, teams kill more often than not.

The timing was great to go on a long break. Filip Chytil is starting to show what he can do on with some consistency, Hank is back to form, Ryan Lindgren making a good push to stay up for longer, Zucc’s ( who now took over the first place in most famous 1.000 faceoff percentage) trade value is skyrocketing. Mika Zibanejad, with his play lately is making the Hayes decision much easier for Gorton. I can go on and on, but it looks like I may need to deal with about a foot of snow this morning upastate. Well, at least we had a good day of skiing yesterday.

I wonder what Hank’s wife think every time he deflects pucks with his head. Geez…

Click here to read Carp’s game review.

 

Ticket contest: Predict the score of tonight’s game to win two tickets

Here we go again!

The winner gets two tickets to attend the Tuesday, January 29th game against Philadelphia. Tickets are in 200 level, lower corner, Rangers shoot twice. I will need your valid email address to transfer the tickets. The contest starts now and goes until the Go Time post at 6:30 pm. This is the last game before the break, so everyone has only one shot to win. If there is no winner, tickets go to the Garden of Dreams Foundation.

The rules, in case you forgot:

  1. I don’t have time to go through hundreds of posts, and check IP addresses for double entries. So if you never posted on Rangers Report 2 ( since Doodie took over), your entry won’t count. Apologies in advance, but that’s the only way to avoid spending too much time judging the contest.
  2. This one is easy

– Pick the score. It has to be exact. Not closest. Not margin of victory

– First tiebreaker: Game winning goal

– Second tiebreaker: Rangers’ shots. This one can be the closest, but WITHOUT GOING OVER

– Third tiebreaker: Bruins’ shots. Again, it can be the closest, but WITHOUT GOING OVER

3. Can you, bozos, PLEASE copy and paste my entry and make your own changes? It’s just so much easier for me to score it.

Rangers-20, Bruins-1

GWG: Kreider

Rangers’ shots: 60

Bruins’ shots-2

Good luck, and have fun.

Rangers-4, Blackhawks-3

Good morning, boneheads!

We will have another ticket contest tomorrow, starting around noon or so.

This was a 4 point game for two teams competing for ping-pong balls between two original six. That’s the reality of current NHL. You stay competitive for some time and then you have to pay for it by going down to the bottom.

The Rangers won this one. Or lost, if you have the guts to root against them. I can’t. But if you think Chicago is tanking, all you need to know is Patrick Kane played over 25 min last night.

I’m going to let Carp talk about Zuccarello, and his climbing trade value, how dominant our first line is becoming, the hands of Filip Chytil, how good was Ryan Lindgren and some other positive things.

Instead, I want to talk about Chicago for a second. They are in the bottom of the league with no place to go. They are in cap hell because they have well over $33M tied up in 4 players from their glory days. For many years to come. Some of these contracts aren’t movable. Their cupboard is empty and will take years to re-stock. But they have 3 Stanley Cups to show for it. THREE! If I am Chicago fan I can live with it. And I can wait for another opportunity.

But what I wouldn’t be OK with is this: Chicago is SOFT. They are easy to dominate physically. Cody McLeod was running amok, hitting everybody in sight without any response. He did that last year against Boston and had to respond to Adam McQuaid immediately. And got pummeled. Trouble for Chicago is that McQuaid was wearing the same jersey as McLeod did last night, and they had nobody else to respond. If I were a Chicago fan, I would hate watching this.

Click here to read Carp’s game review

Rangers-6, Hurricanes-2

Good morning, boneheads!

So what do we learn from this game? I think what we learn from it is that Mika Zibanejad is a legitimate 1st line, dominating center. We learn that Buchnevich is finally turning into a point producing, set up machine. Mats Zuccarello  is one of the better passers in the game, and we are going to sorely miss him when this team is going to compete again. The lesson is that Tony DeAngelo is going to be a legitimate 1st pair puck mover who will score a ton of goals.  Kevin Shattenkirk is not just turning the corner, but will return to his early St. Louis form. And on, and on…

Of course not….

But what this game showed is that maybe this team, and its players, isn’t what this blog has been calling them for the last couple of weeks,  the post prior to last night’s Go Time post especially. And that is they are all a bunch of complimentary players, most are bottom 6, and the rest are borderline AHLers. They all posses a questionable skating ability, and Lundqvist is done. I understand the frustration with losing, but some of the comments are flat out depressing. It’s the STEW, and what we are seeing is expected.

What this game really shows is what happens if your priority in the entertainment industry becomes a multi-billion profit instead of, you know, entertainment. This league is suffering, and will continue to suffer, from diluting its talent. Carolina, who won a few consecutive games before coming to the Garden, and sitting 5 spots above NY in the league standings, isn’t really much better.

I was more interested in seeing Lindgren play. He was steady, did OK, I thought. But even with him being a little reserved and nervous you can see his game. He is going to be a pain in the neck to play against. They need that. Unless, of course, he is just another borderline AHLer 🙂

Click here to read Carp’s game review.