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Hudson River Rivalry Resumes Tonight at The Rock

by Patrick Hoffman on 03/10/10 at 10:57 AM ET
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With both teams struggling to get points, tonight’s tilt between the New York Rangers and New Jersey Devils should be interesting.

In their previous two meetings, it was all about scoring opportunities and great goaltending by Rangers’ netminder Henrik Lundqvist and Devils’ goaltender Martin Brodeur. However, coming into this meeting, both teams are struggling to find offense so this could end up being a classic late 90’s matchup where there aren’t many scoring chances and the score ends up being 2-0, 2-1, 1-0, etc.

The Blueshirts obviously need to find a way to put the puck in the net. Right now, good offense should be the focus because Lundqvist and the defense seem to be able to settle things down (for the most part anyway).

Marian Gaborik needs to start scoring goals and play like he did in the beginning of the season. As good as Erik Christensen has been, he needs to be even better since the Blueshirts apparently consider him good enough to play on the team’s top line.

Good friend of the blog Jim Cerny had several interesting points in his game preview for the team’s web site:

Happy with his team’s defensive play of late, Rangers head coach John Tortorella has urged his club to pick up its collective game offensively. In particular he has challenged the top line of Marian Gaborik, Erik Christensen, and Prospal to be better than they have been of late.

Tortorella did say following Tuesday’s practice that he will keep that threesome together to start tonight’s game with the hope that they can produce more offense. The head coach also pointed out that he very much liked the way Olli Jokinen, Artem Anisimov, and Sean Avery played together on Sunday, and that those three will also remain together this evening in New Jersey.

“It’s a team game, and everyone has to contribute out there,” said Gaborik, who leads the Rangers with 35 goals. “We don’t have a lot of games left, and it’s very tight in the standings so everyone has to step up.”

Rangers’ head coach John Tortorella and Gaborik said the following regarding Gaborik’s health down the stretch:

Fully-healed or not, Gaborik said, “I need to play the last 16 games.”

“This is an important time, and we all know that,” said Tortorella. “We’re not looking at the big picture of 16 (games) left, but taking them one at a time. And Gaby is a big part of what we do.”

Should be an interesting (hopefully not a boring, low-scoring affair) one folks so enjoy!

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 Tags: New+Jersey+Devils, New+York+Rangers,

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Patrick has a tremendous passion for hockey. Besides covering the Rangers and the NHL for Kukla’s Korner, you can also find Patrick’s work over at RLD Hockey, Rangers Tribune, and TheGoodPoint.com.

Prior to writing for the above mentioned outlets, you could find Patrick’s musings at hockey web sites/outlets such as TheHockeyNews.com, The Fourth Period, Spector’s Hockey, Hokeja Vestnesis, Blueshirt Bulletin, SNYRangersBlog.com and many more.

For questions, comments and hip checks, feel free to e-mail Patrick at .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address).

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