Friday, March 23, 2007

Final Push for the Stanley Cup Playoffs!

Long break from blogging, lots going on in my personal life, but I'm going to try and start posting more regularly again. Anyway, my Rangers are in the 7th spot in the East with 83 points right now with 8 games left in the regular season. The scary thing is there are only 6 points separating the 11th through 6th seeds, so this one is going to come down to the wire. The Rangers have been playing well recently, and as long as they can get in to the playoffs, I think they can go far.

A few thoughts/observations on the Rangers-

* Picking up Sean Avery was an excellent trade. He immediately added a toughness and edge the Rangers had lacked all season. I've been a fan of his since he was with Detroit, and seeing him antagonize opposing players, annoy goalies and draw penalties for my Blueshirts has been great. He just plays so tough and creates something almost every time he is on the ice.

* Goalie Henrik Lundqvist is awesome. He gives the Rangers a chance to win every night and should be considered in MVP talks. Unfortunately, he started off the season a little off, but has just played incredible in the 2nd half of the season.

* I am thrilled with the young talent on the team. Because of injuries, the Rangers have had to call up some kids, and they have responded well. It's nice to know the Rangers have some young talent for once, and will be able to continue to be good in the near future.

* Final note- the Rangers are a better team than their likely 7th or 8th seeding would imply. They got off to a slow start to the season, and have been playing catchup in the second half. However, their goalie has been playing great in the second half, and a hot goalie can steal a playoff series by himself. Also, I thought the biggest problem with the Rangers early in the year was team defense; they would be sloppy with the puck when on offense and give up a lot of odd-man breaks and if they got out of position on defense they ended up chasing the puck around the zone until they took a penalty or got scored on. The last couple months they have really fixed that part of their game. The Rangers also will be getting healthy heading into the playoffs- Brendan Shannahan came back to the team on Wednesday and was effective, and we should be getting Straka, Tyutin and Hossa back in time for the playoffs. And we now know the Rangers have some young depth if they do go down a few men in the playoffs. All in all, I like the Rangers chances in the playoffs (as long as they get in). I think they can skate with any team in the East, the only one that really scare me is Buffalo.

Go Rangers!

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