1) I thought the Rangers played a good game against Atlanta. The played pretty well, especially in the first period.
2) That shorthanded goal was a rookie mistake by Del Zotto. You have to expect these things especially coming from such a young player like Del Zotto.
3) Speaking of Del Zotto, he is a stud. Did you see that pass he had to give Callahan the breakaway on that second goal? If not search for it on youtube. He passes Callahan the puck from right next to Hank on the red line all the way to Atlanta’s blue line.
4) Hedberg played really well. If it wasn’t for him the score would have been about 4-2 Rangers.
5) C’mon Higgins. You can’t score on a 2-0? What’s wrong with you.
6) Did you see Hedberg’s save on Kotalik? DAMN! That was a great save that kept the Thrashers in the game.
7) If the Rangers play as well as they did against Atlanta, tonight, they should have no problem beat the Islanders.
Well, the Rangers are back from their injury-filled Canadian road trip. After going 1-2 on the road trip the Rangers will look to rebound in the friendly confines of Madison Square Garden.
The starting lines as per Andrew Gross
Lisin-Vinny Prospal-Marian Gaborik
Higgins-Artem Anisimov-Ales Kotalik
Sean Avery-Brian Boyle-Ryan Callahan
Leaving some combination of Voros, Byers and Brashear for the fourth line. There could be some double shifting of Prospal, Anisimov and Boyle for a center as well.
Henrik Lundqvist is starting in net for the Blueshirts tonight after nursing a sore groin for a few games.
As expected both Drury and Dubinsky are both out of the line-up tonight.
Drury, in all likelyhood will return in the next few games and Dubinsky will be out for at least three weeks at the minimum.
The Atlanta Thrashers are a strange team. They aren’t going to make the playoffs but have been playing rather well as of late. They recently went on a 6 game winning streak beating such teams the Canadiens, the Capitals and the Sabres. The Thrashers went into last nights game having dropped 3 of 4 though.
Nik Zherdev scored late in the first period to put the Rangers up 1-0. Slava Kozlov scored in the second to tie the game at one. Chris Drury and Nik Antropov added powerplay goals within about a minute and a half to put the Rangers up 3-1. Naslund added a goal 5 minutes later to put the Rangers up 4-1. But those strange Thrashers found a way to overcome this 3 goal defecit. Kovalchuk scored with just seconds remaining in the third to make it 4-2. Armstrong added one early in the third and Todd White tied the game at 4 with 7 minutes left.
Kari Lehtonen left the game early in the third with an upper body injury.
Johan Hedberg replaced him in net. Steve Valiquette made what will most likely be his last game this season barring an injury to Lundqvist.
The game went to Overtime and then a a shootout.
The shootout had 12 shooters, 6 for each team.
Little shot first and didn’t score. Naslund shot first for New York was stopped.
Kozlov shot and was stopped. Antropov shot for New York and was stopped.
Kovalchuk was stopped then Drury was stopped as well.
Perrin was stopped and then Callahan hit the crossbar.
Peverley and Sjostrom were stopped too.
Finally, White scored for the Thrashers, and Gomez was denied. Thrashers win 5-4.
The Rangers lost a tough game against the Thrashers 2-1 in a shootout on Tuesday. The game was scoreless until the third period when Joseph Motzko scored his first of the season 6:26 into the third. The game looked to be over when the Rangers pulled their goal and Kovalchuk missed a wide open net. Then with just 11 seconds left Markus Naslund tied the game at one. the game went to a shootout where the Thrashers went 2-2 in the shootout. The Rangers went 1-3. Next game: Friday at 8:30 against Dallas. It looks as if the Rangers are interested in bringing back Sean Avery which i think is a good move for the Rangers. He could bring back a much needed spark to the Rangers line-up.
1st Star: Kari Lehtonen
2nd Star:Vyacheslav Kozlov
3rd Star: Henrik Lundqvist
Just got back from a 10 day vacation. The Rangers next game is February 3rd against the Atlanta Thrashers at Madison Square Garden. Before the game the Rangers will be retiring Adam Graves #9. Graves played 10 seasons with the Rangers and helped them to a Stanley Cup victory in 1994. The talented left winger scored 616 points in 1,152 games. The Rangers have been approaching 30 wins for almost a week now and are currently on a 2 game losing streak with a 6-2 loss to Pittsburg and a 1-0 loss to Boston. The Thrashers, who haven’t won a game since January 20th will look to break out of a 4 game losing streak. The Rangers have recently traded Dan Fritsche for Minnesota Wild defenseman Erik Reitz. Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist will try to continue the goaltending that occured on Saturday afternoon against the Bruins and try to stay away from the goaltending that occured in the game against Pittsburg where he let 5 goals in in the 3rd period. Gametime is 8pm.
