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Skills Competition Bails out Rangers
by Patrick Hoffman on 11/29/08 at 11:00 AM ET
Comments (2)
For the second straight game, the New York Rangers needed a shootout to pick up two points, this time against the Florida Panthers.
It was also the second straight game that both Markus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev scored in the “skills competition” to give the Rangers a 4-3 victory.
Unlike there many other games that went to the shootout, it was the opposing team that tied up the game with just over a minute to go in the tilt as David Booth ripped in an in-tight shot past Rangers’ goaltender Henrik Lundqvist (38 saves) with 1:33 left to go in the hockey game.
It was a game that featured 87 combined shots, great goaltending from both netminders (Craig Anderson of the Florida Panthers made 43 saves) and an excellent Rangers’ penalty kill that killed of 1:47 worth of a 5-on-3 Panthers’ power play.
This was also a game that the Rangers had to win. Going into the game, the Panthers were tied for last in the Southeast Division with the Tampa Bay Lightning and were coming off a heartbreaking 3-2 overtime loss to the New Jersey Devils on Wednesday night. Couple that with the Rangers’ two-game winning streak, the strong play of Markus Naslund and Nikolai Zherdev and Lundqvist’s goaltending, and it should have been a slam dunk win for the Blueshirts.
With that said, the Panthers gave the Rangers some trouble last night as they fired 41 shots on Lundqvist and forced him to make huge saves and also took a lot of penalties. Yes, the team came out on top with the victory but eventually, bad penalties will catch up to them and pucks will start getting past their all-star netminder.
“They’re a really good team, and they work really hard,” Lundqvist told the team’s website.
The good news is that Zherdev and Naslund continue to show a lot of chemistry out on the ice. Zherdev picked up his 8th goal of the regular season and the shootout winner while Naslund assisted on Zherdev’s goal and also scored in the shootout. Both of these players were looking for fresh starts in New York and right now, they look to be enjoying themselves and being productive because of it.
Tomorrow afternoon, the Blueshirts return to Madison Square Garden where they are 10-3-4 to take on this same Panthers’ hockey club. If you were head coach Tom Renney, would you make any lineup changes? Would you consider giving Stephen Valiquette the start in goal? How about playing Petr Prucha, which obviously never came to fruition last night?
Let me hear your thoughts!
Filed in: | Goal Line Report | Permalink
Tags: Craig+Anderson, David+Booth, Florida+Panthers, Henrik+Lundqvist, Markus+Naslund, New+Jersey+Devils, New+York+Rangers, Nikolai+Zherdev, Petr+Prucha, Stephen+Valiquette, Tampa+Bay+Lightning, Tom+Renney,
Comments
I’m not bitter at all. I don’t mind the shootout but instead of calling it a shootout, I wanted to mix it up a bit.
Posted by Patrick Hoffman from White Plains, NY on 11/29/08 at 02:03 PM ET
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About Goal Line Report
The Goal Line Report will focus on all things Eastern Conference. Do I have a bias towards the Eastern Conference just because I am a New Yorker? No, but it certainly does make things easier! I’ll make my opinions known on Eastern Conference news bits (as often as I can), big games, hot and cold players, trades (I don’t make things up) and anything and everything else related to the Eastern Conference that I think is important for hockey fans to know. I will, in every sense of the word, be the beast of the East while also making sure to drop my thoughts on other hockey news items.
I, Patrick Hoffman, have covered the NHL since 2003 and have worked for a variety of hockey media sources including: Stan Fischler, Spector’s Hockey, TheHockeyNews.com, HockeyBuzz.com, McKeen’s Hockey, Blueshirt Bulletin, XM Home Ice Channel Hockey Blog, HockeyPrimeTime.com, FantasyHockey.com. NY SportsDay, and HokejaVestnesis.com.
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Skills competition? Bitter much?
Posted by japp from Sweden on 11/29/08 at 01:19 PM ET