One down and three to go. Way to tough out a win. How many straight power plays did Buffalo get during that third period and previous to that. Unbelieveable!
One down and three to go. Way to tough out a win. How many straight power plays did Buffalo get during that third period and previous to that. Unbelieveable!
the refs did everything in their power to give this game away
we're gonna have to win on our own
obviously the nhl wants buffalo for some reason
it was 6 in a row
i find it hard to believe that in an intense game buffalo has no penalties for almost 3 periods,,, pretty impossible
the refs did everything in their power to give this game away
we're gonna have to win on our own
obviously the nhl wants buffalo for some reason
it was 6 in a row
i find it hard to believe that in an intense game buffalo has no penalties for almost 3 periods,,, pretty impossible
o well one game at a time
LET'S GO RANGER'S!!!!!!!!!
But of course, none of those 6 were penalities, were they?
it should have been more.......by BOTH teams........if they were to call everything. I saw the Rangers commit penalties at the same time Buffalo got called in the OT periods. And even the commentators (WHICH ABSOLUTELY SUCKED BY THE WAY) mentioned a few times how the Rangers were embellishing every little hit.
i really wish people would get off the "refs are out to get us" excuse. The Rangers played well enough to win. that should be the end of the story.
instead.....even the Rangers themselves are whining just like their fans.
you ranger fans dont know how to behave in those situations when the refs are screwing ya.....you gotta litter the ice with garbage like us isles fans. get with it.
you ranger fans dont know how to behave in those situations when the refs are screwing ya.....you gotta litter the ice with garbage like us isles fans. get with it.
nah not our style
we just call them assholes
although if i was closer i might have threw something yesterday
fucking dude steps on jagr's blade and they call it a tri p
and the kicked in goal????? u gotta be kidding me
its going the same way as the fishsticks series
buffalo is getting everything their way
they feel bad for them i guess
no winners in that city for awhile
but im off this topic,,we'll have to fight threw it
thank god their are new refs tom night
these refs suck, clap, clap, these refs suck, clap, clap..
Reading 2004
Albany 2006 Camden 2006 E. Rutherford 2, 2006 Inglewood 2006,
Chicago 2007
Camden 2008 MSG 2008 MSG 2008 Hartford 2008.
Seattle 2009 Seattle 2009 Philadelphia 2009,Philadelphia 2009 Philadelphia 2009
Hartford 2010 MSG 2010 MSG 2010
Toronto 2011,Toronto 2011
Wrigley Field 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Philadelphia 2, 2013
Philadelphia 1, 2016 Philadelphia 2 2016 New York 2016 New York 2016 Fenway 1, 2016 Fenway 2, 2018 MSG 2022 St. Paul, 1, St. Paul 2 2023 MSG 2024, MSG 2024 Philadelphia 2024
"I play good, hard-nosed basketball.
Things happen in the game. Nothing you
can do. I don't go and say,
"I'm gonna beat this guy up."
the refs in this league are a major problem. are these guys grabbed off the street and thrown into zebra uni's?
the nhl as a whole has problem with following its own rules. it is the only sport where the rules are not followed specifically...whats with the sometimes/depending on the situation bullshit? And personally i hate the fact that goal review go to some "war room" in Toronto. I dont trust that at all. The Islanders season ended because someone in Toronto made a call against them....Toronto, whose team we knocked out of playoff contention. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it stinks...stinks real bad. the NHL should do like the NFL and have disputed calls reviewed by the refs in the actual game. But i guess u cant do that when u have a batch of incompetent officials.
Went to visit my ma yesterday and we were watching the third period and she commented how nice the Rangers look in their blue uniforms, and how she dosen't get to see them too much anymore. Spot on! One of, if not the best look in the NHL. Plus having the tie string on the shirt adds a touch of class. Just a quick story.......
the refs in this league are a major problem. are these guys grabbed off the street and thrown into zebra uni's?
the nhl as a whole has problem with following its own rules. it is the only sport where the rules are not followed specifically...whats with the sometimes/depending on the situation bullshit? And personally i hate the fact that goal review go to some "war room" in Toronto. I dont trust that at all. The Islanders season ended because someone in Toronto made a call against them....Toronto, whose team we knocked out of playoff contention. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it stinks...stinks real bad. the NHL should do like the NFL and have disputed calls reviewed by the refs in the actual game. But i guess u cant do that when u have a batch of incompetent officials.
Well it is not as if you have disgruntled Laugh fans looking at the replays. I have to say that when it goes to replay review that they usually get it right. Yes both those reviews yesterday proved to be correct. I have seen less of an intent on the "kick" be called back. Hell they even call it kicking the puck in when the guy is jamming the breaks on to stop from hitting the goalie and the rebound bounces off his feet and goes in. Lame rule interpretation sometimes.
the refs in this league are a major problem. are these guys grabbed off the street and thrown into zebra uni's?
the nhl as a whole has problem with following its own rules. it is the only sport where the rules are not followed specifically...whats with the sometimes/depending on the situation bullshit? And personally i hate the fact that goal review go to some "war room" in Toronto. I dont trust that at all. The Islanders season ended because someone in Toronto made a call against them....Toronto, whose team we knocked out of playoff contention. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it stinks...stinks real bad. the NHL should do like the NFL and have disputed calls reviewed by the refs in the actual game. But i guess u cant do that when u have a batch of incompetent officials.
I agree. the officiating is so inconsistent, its laughable.
may I suggest instead of Toronto, that war room be in.....say.......Omaha???
The world wanted to anoint the Buffalo Sabres world champions after their Game 1 win over the Rangers. After Game 3, even though they still hold the upper hand with a 2-1 lead in the series, it has become clear that they are not (yet) the best team in this series let alone the best team in the league. Two mistakes (Malik and Mara in Game 2), two bad periods by Henrik Lundqvist (4:05 in the second period of Game 1 and the third period of Game 2), and two huge assists from the zebrae (most of Games 1 and 3) are all that stand between the Sabres and the Thrashers right now. The Rangers have been at their best in the last two games, and the Sabres are lucky to have escaped with one win in Game 2 and something beyond lucky to have stayed close enough to weather most of double overtime before the Rangers took Game 3 by a 2-1 final score.
"We definitely deserved to win," said Brendan Shanahan. "We had the advantage. It would have been a tough one to lose. We played well enough to win last game and didn't get it -- it would have been a tough pill to swallow to have the same thing happen again today." "It was a must-win for us," said Lundqvist, who was impeccable, beaten only by a power play deflection off his own defenseman, not by any Sabres. "We dominated the game -- we deserved to win. The way we played up in Buffalo the last game was a tough one for us." "I'm mad about the second one where we lost in Buffalo," said Jaromir Jagr, who scored on one of his ten shots on goal in a monster performance. "I never felt like that before, down 2-0 -- I had a lot of good feelings about this game. The way we played in Buffalo, we just had a little bad luck. We gave them the victory. If we can keep playing the same way, we have a chance."
The Rangers had more bad luck in this game, if you can call it luck -- the Rangers can't call it anything else or else they'll be fined by the NHL. The NHL is lucky that the Rangers won this game, or else they would have faced Exhibit A on national TV in the US of why they are a Mickey Mouse league. The Rangers' dominance of this game was taken completely away from them by league officials in the "War Room" in Toronto and by the referees on the ice. An apparent second period goal by Karel Rachunek was negated by video review for having been kicked in. In making the ruling, the league failed to properly apply two stringent criteria -- the kicking motion had to be "distinct", which was not at all clear from any replay, and the evidence had to be "conclusive" to overturn the ruling on the ice of a goal, which again was not at all clear.
"We felt that second goal of ours should've counted," said Shanahan. "I've seen replays of it -- it absolutely should've been a goal in my opinion." "Our video coach made his way to the bench pretty animated," said Renney. "He wasn't happy. It was not a kicking motion. It has to be a distinct kicking motion. If that's distinct then we're all in trouble. Those kind of things have to be clarified."
From that point on, the officials tried everything they could to hand this game to Buffalo. They called six straight penalties on the Rangers while letting the Sabres get away with similar infractions. "Those were some tough calls," said Renney. "Usually through the course of the game they balance themselves off -- maybe that was not quite the case tonight." Jagr was called for tripping on a play where he was playing the puck and the opponent stepped on his stick. "I got a crosschecking penalty when I only had one hand on my stick," said Shanahan. "We're not going to be given anything," said Renney. "We're the type of team that's going to have to earn respect every single game we play. That's just because we're the New York Rangers. People just love to hate us."
When the Rangers did finally get a call late in the first overtime period, it took a rare Jagr dive to draw it -- Jagr doesn't like to dive, but apparently he felt he no longer had a choice. The power play was perhaps the only part of their game that failed to click -- otherwise, they were simply perfect against the vaunted Sabres. Defensively, they made every play, especially on the many penalty kills. Lundqvist backstopped them flawlessly when pucks did get through. The offense may not have scored much, but the pressure was there without sacrificing any defense.
And they finally got a break when Michal Rozsival's point shot late in the second overtime session found its way through a tangle of bodies (Jagr's screen, primarily) and rang in off the post. "We had a great view of the shot from the bench," said Shanahan. "It was perfect. If you draw a line straight from where the puck went back to our bench, we had a great view of it. There was traffic in front and there was probably only one place he could put the puck, and he put it there, off the post and in. We were getting to our feet before it even went into the net because we could see it was traveling there." Rozsival joked that he just closed his eyes and shot, but he might as well have.
If the Rangers' power play ever clicks, if the refs ever give them a fair shake, and if Lundqvist plays like he did today the rest of the way, the Sabres' Stanley Cup run is going be shaken to its foundation -- if their good fortune thus far ultimately proves to be enough to help them advance, they will move on as an exposed club. But even having been spotted the first two games, the Sabres are no lock to advance, not after the way the Rangers have exposed them in the past two games (and even a bit before that).
Wow. This is a pretty sad article. I understand that the officiating has been very inconsistent throughout the playoffs (not just this series), but c'mon. The writer even admits that Jagr took a dive, which is a non-call that hurt the Sabres! Everyone is getting burned by the officiating in the playoffs thus far, not just New York.
And all that seperates Buffalo from Atlanta are "two bad periods by Henrik and assists from the zebrae?" Are you kidding me? A Buffalo writer might as well say that the Rangers are "one fraction of an inch away from being the Thrashers" after Buffalo had a shot ring off the post and rol across the crease in OT.
It's a tight series, and will continue to be so. Enjoy it, and stop bitching about every little thing that doesn't go your way.
Oh - and MSG - your ice surface is god awful. You might want to work on that....
8/22/98 - Toronto
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh
Oh - and MSG - your ice surface is god awful. You might want to work on that....
skate on it much ?
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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Donate Organs and Save a Life
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
ORGAN DONATION SAVES LIVES http://www.UNOS.org
Donate Organs and Save a Life
Did you see the game on Sunday?! It looked like they were playing with a tennis ball! Noboby could carry the puck into the zone. Kotalik was skating through the neutral at one point, and un-touched, un-checked, and without even making a move, the puck jumped off his stick. It's terrible.
8/22/98 - Toronto
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh
Did you see the game on Sunday?! It looked like they were playing with a tennis ball! Noboby could carry the puck into the zone. Kotalik was skating through the neutral at one point, and un-touched, un-checked, and without even making a move, the puck jumped off his stick. It's terrible.
between the circus , the knicks , the liberty , St Johns Uni and other various college basketball games , arena football , pearl jam concerts ( OK- maybe thats a reach - but all rock concerts in general )
the only thing is that both teams play on the same sheet , so theres really no advantage / disadvantage there , other then that the game as a whole suffers.
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
ORGAN DONATION SAVES LIVES http://www.UNOS.org
Donate Organs and Save a Life
between the circus , the knicks , the liberty , St Johns Uni and other various college basketball games , arena football , pearl jam concerts ( OK- maybe thats a reach - but all rock concerts in general )
the only thing is that both teams play on the same sheet , so theres really no advantage / disadvantage there , other then that the game as a whole suffers.
the changeover had to have been extremely quick for game three. saturday they had the killers in concert. the show started at 8 but there were opening bands and considering that I didn't the vendor I know on the LIRR until the 1:14 AM train, I'd say they probably had less time to change than they would for a knick to a ranger game..
Reading 2004
Albany 2006 Camden 2006 E. Rutherford 2, 2006 Inglewood 2006,
Chicago 2007
Camden 2008 MSG 2008 MSG 2008 Hartford 2008.
Seattle 2009 Seattle 2009 Philadelphia 2009,Philadelphia 2009 Philadelphia 2009
Hartford 2010 MSG 2010 MSG 2010
Toronto 2011,Toronto 2011
Wrigley Field 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Philadelphia 2, 2013
Philadelphia 1, 2016 Philadelphia 2 2016 New York 2016 New York 2016 Fenway 1, 2016 Fenway 2, 2018 MSG 2022 St. Paul, 1, St. Paul 2 2023 MSG 2024, MSG 2024 Philadelphia 2024
"I play good, hard-nosed basketball.
Things happen in the game. Nothing you
can do. I don't go and say,
"I'm gonna beat this guy up."
If the outcome of Game 3 was justice, the officiating of Game 3 was not. And I am excluding the Karel Rachunek wave-off goal controvesy... a decision which was rendered in Toronto rather than Manhattan.
Look. The Buffalo Sabres are a superior team. When they are playing at their best, they will defeat the Rangers over the long haul. And even when the upstaters are not playing their best, it requires a near-perfect performance by the underdogs to make a series of it.
Frankly... had the zebræ (Paul Devorski and Dennis Larue) merely called the game equitably, the Blueshirts would have had the contest cinched in regulation.
Dis-ir-regardless whether you agree with NHL Operations that Rachunek's right foot made an explicit kicking motion... the fact remains that Ales Kotalik's unwhistled hook is what prevented the Gotham blueliner from tapping the pill home with his weapon instead of his blade.
After the long delay in overruling the tally, the Rangers should have been awarded a power play for their trouble.
But the list of grievances reads like a telephone book. The Sabres routinely set up picks with impunity, got away with stick-holds and received other dispensations as well, while the Rangers were penalized for everything save some overlooked hooks in the second overtime and a possible dive by Jaromir Jagr on the Drew Stafford punition.
Now I have no beef with the cross-check levied against Brendan Shanahan which led to the visitor's lone marker on the ensuing power play. In my opinion, Shanny was okay with his first nudge on Kotalik from behind. It was that second shove which went too far. Was it a cross-check? Of course, not. Was it roughing or boarding or just plain too much physicality? Fersure. Shanny has been at this long enough to know he went one step beyond where he should have gone. And it cost New York plenty.
• • •
There were several differences Sunday afternoon that are worth mentioning:
Lindy Ruff was unable to match his checkers against JJ and Michael Nylander. Instead, Tom Renney countered Daniel Briere with the Blueshirts' first line - a master stroke which proved the grand equalizer.
It wasn't so much a case of JJ & Co. scoring at will against a trio more known for their own offense than backchecking... it was a case of territorial and time control.
This was one of those rare situations where I did not mind at all the dipsy-doodling and cycling the Czechs like to manifest. For every second the puck was deep inside the Sabre end of the rink, it was 200 feet distant from Henrik Lundqvist.
And another thing... for some reason the enemy stopped practicing their three-across blue line stand, daring the Rangers to penetrate the phalanx. That may have been a case of Renney's minions readily responding with dump-and-chase which is an example of (arguably) the single most important aspect of the match:
The Rangers were patient and meticulous about advancing the pill in trimesters.
Instead of attempting to force the offense with fluent rushes and elegant cross-ice passing, the home team was content to move the rubber in stages... to take whatever route the Sabres were willing to yield.
When the puck was in the Ranger zone, they did whatever it took to get it out of harm's way, to push it - by any means possible - into the neutral zone. This tactic clearly frustrated the Sabres, who struggled the entire game to generate flow in their attack.
At the other end, New York took whatever the Sabre formation would allow. If a dump was all they could achieve, then dump they did and the subsequent forechecking kept the bad guys bottled up in their own zone for long stretches.
In fact, the flexibility of New York's penetration style pretty much denied the Sabres trap and transition. I don't recall a single odd-man rush after the midway point of Period 1 when the clubs skated five a side.
Renney even formulated a blue-line stand of his own, evident in Period 2 when Rangers aggressively defended their own zone and tried to cause turnovers by stepping up.
Another reason for Buffalo's lack of zoom might have been the slushy ice surface.
As much as it crippled the Gotham attack, it doubly handicapped the Sabres' rush, which is pretty one-dimensional and relies upon speed.
Did Jack Durkin receive orders to turn up the thermostat?
We'll never know.
As for the overtime... I gotta tell you I was wrong about this.
I though fersure that the longer the game endured, the better were Buffalo's chances, what with their roster being younger than New York's... and given Ruff's better time-management of his lines.
The trio of Jed Ortmeyer, Brad Isbister and Blair Betts saw less then ten minutes of ice... in a game that lasted nearly 100 minutes. I.e., Renney was burning up his other trios.
I again assert that having Thomas Pöck in the lineup for Izzie would have been the prudent approach, given Michael Rozsival's knee sensitivity and the exposure for overtime.
It's not as if Izzie did all that much in his three shifts per period. And with Pöck, Renney has the opportunity to spell his other rearguard every few shifts. Jimminy Christmas, Rozsy skated 38¼ minutes! And Fedor Tyutin played 34 of which seven came under stressful penalty-kill conditions.
By contrast, only defenseman Dmitri Kalinin approached Tyutin's 34. And Kalinin played fewer than five minutes of PK.
Fixed: That horrible gaffe of Game 2 in which Marcel Hossa and Betts covered the same point man on the penalty kill resulting in an open lane for Brian Campbell's goal midway into Period 2. On Sunday, the Blueshirts were regularly communicating assignments on the PK and the only goal the Sabres scored came when the Rangers played the points too passively, allowing Buffalo time to set up and begin their interference patterns in front of Henke.
I give Rozsival my first star of the game, followed by King Henrik. Rozsy made only one significant blunder and otherwise deftly skated the puck out of danger time and time again.
For the ones who had a notion, a notion deep inside
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Dear God, you guys might actually whine more then the Islanders. You do realize there were bad calls both ways, right?
How about the tripping penalty on the Rangers that was waved off because of offsides? What, anything that happends after the whistle is exempt from penalties!? It's a free for all!!!
The penalty called on Stafford along the boards (Jagr took a dive) was garbage.
It goes both ways - get over it and deal with it.
8/22/98 - Toronto
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh
Comments
the refs did everything in their power to give this game away
we're gonna have to win on our own
obviously the nhl wants buffalo for some reason
it was 6 in a row
i find it hard to believe that in an intense game buffalo has no penalties for almost 3 periods,,, pretty impossible
o well one game at a time
LET'S GO RANGER'S!!!!!!!!!
" WE'RE THE NEW YORK RANGER'S and thats the way it is-PEOPLE JUST LOVE TO HATE US "
talking about the non-calls and review against us
LET'S GO RANGER'S!!
it should have been more.......by BOTH teams........if they were to call everything. I saw the Rangers commit penalties at the same time Buffalo got called in the OT periods. And even the commentators (WHICH ABSOLUTELY SUCKED BY THE WAY) mentioned a few times how the Rangers were embellishing every little hit.
i really wish people would get off the "refs are out to get us" excuse. The Rangers played well enough to win. that should be the end of the story.
instead.....even the Rangers themselves are whining just like their fans.
"wwwaaaahhhhhhhhh! nobody likes us......."
beat it sucka,,no one asked you
this is not for you
you ranger fans dont know how to behave in those situations when the refs are screwing ya.....you gotta litter the ice with garbage like us isles fans. get with it.
anyways......it's not that I hate Rangers, I don't. They're just playing the Sabres right now.........
nah not our style
we just call them assholes
although if i was closer i might have threw something yesterday
fucking dude steps on jagr's blade and they call it a tri p
and the kicked in goal????? u gotta be kidding me
its going the same way as the fishsticks series
buffalo is getting everything their way
they feel bad for them i guess
no winners in that city for awhile
but im off this topic,,we'll have to fight threw it
thank god their are new refs tom night
cause they be some blind mice
lol
Albany 2006 Camden 2006 E. Rutherford 2, 2006 Inglewood 2006,
Chicago 2007
Camden 2008 MSG 2008 MSG 2008 Hartford 2008.
Seattle 2009 Seattle 2009 Philadelphia 2009,Philadelphia 2009 Philadelphia 2009
Hartford 2010 MSG 2010 MSG 2010
Toronto 2011,Toronto 2011
Wrigley Field 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Philadelphia 2, 2013
Philadelphia 1, 2016 Philadelphia 2 2016 New York 2016 New York 2016 Fenway 1, 2016
Fenway 2, 2018
MSG 2022
St. Paul, 1, St. Paul 2 2023
MSG 2024, MSG 2024
Philadelphia 2024
"I play good, hard-nosed basketball.
Things happen in the game. Nothing you
can do. I don't go and say,
"I'm gonna beat this guy up."
that was a good chant
I thought it was "Zebra's Suck!"
Couldn't tell from the TV, but I guess it works the same, with the refs in black and white stripes.
LETS GO RANGERS!!!
the nhl as a whole has problem with following its own rules. it is the only sport where the rules are not followed specifically...whats with the sometimes/depending on the situation bullshit? And personally i hate the fact that goal review go to some "war room" in Toronto. I dont trust that at all. The Islanders season ended because someone in Toronto made a call against them....Toronto, whose team we knocked out of playoff contention. I'm not one for conspiracy theories, but it stinks...stinks real bad. the NHL should do like the NFL and have disputed calls reviewed by the refs in the actual game. But i guess u cant do that when u have a batch of incompetent officials.
Well it is not as if you have disgruntled Laugh fans looking at the replays.
may I suggest instead of Toronto, that war room be in.....say.......Omaha???
Wow. This is a pretty sad article. I understand that the officiating has been very inconsistent throughout the playoffs (not just this series), but c'mon. The writer even admits that Jagr took a dive, which is a non-call that hurt the Sabres! Everyone is getting burned by the officiating in the playoffs thus far, not just New York.
And all that seperates Buffalo from Atlanta are "two bad periods by Henrik and assists from the zebrae?" Are you kidding me? A Buffalo writer might as well say that the Rangers are "one fraction of an inch away from being the Thrashers" after Buffalo had a shot ring off the post and rol across the crease in OT.
It's a tight series, and will continue to be so. Enjoy it, and stop bitching about every little thing that doesn't go your way.
Oh - and MSG - your ice surface is god awful. You might want to work on that....
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh
LET'S GO RANGER'S!!!!!!!!
skate on it much ?
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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Ranger Interviews ( Jagr , Shanny , Renney )
[size=+3] - _/ _/ _/ Lets Go Rangers \_ \_ \_ - [/size]
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
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Donate Organs and Save a Life
Did you see the game on Sunday?! It looked like they were playing with a tennis ball! Noboby could carry the puck into the zone. Kotalik was skating through the neutral at one point, and un-touched, un-checked, and without even making a move, the puck jumped off his stick. It's terrible.
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh
ummmmmmm home ice advantage to slow u down
helloooooooooo
ice is like this on purpose
It wouldn't surprise me, but the MSG ice has always been terrible. It's nothing new.
Buffalo does have home ice advantage in the long run, so you're still in trouble.
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh
yes it does suck,,but it sucks extra much to slow the sabs down
we need to have some extra home ice advantage being u guys have the real home ice advantage
between the circus , the knicks , the liberty , St Johns Uni and other various college basketball games , arena football , pearl jam concerts ( OK- maybe thats a reach - but all rock concerts in general )
the only thing is that both teams play on the same sheet , so theres really no advantage / disadvantage there , other then that the game as a whole suffers.
[size=+3] - _/ _/ _/ Lets Go Rangers \_ \_ \_ - [/size]
That it ain't no sin to be glad you're alive
ORGAN DONATION SAVES LIVES
http://www.UNOS.org
Donate Organs and Save a Life
the changeover had to have been extremely quick for game three. saturday they had the killers in concert. the show started at 8 but there were opening bands and considering that I didn't the vendor I know on the LIRR until the 1:14 AM train, I'd say they probably had less time to change than they would for a knick to a ranger game..
Albany 2006 Camden 2006 E. Rutherford 2, 2006 Inglewood 2006,
Chicago 2007
Camden 2008 MSG 2008 MSG 2008 Hartford 2008.
Seattle 2009 Seattle 2009 Philadelphia 2009,Philadelphia 2009 Philadelphia 2009
Hartford 2010 MSG 2010 MSG 2010
Toronto 2011,Toronto 2011
Wrigley Field 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Brooklyn 2013 Philadelphia 2, 2013
Philadelphia 1, 2016 Philadelphia 2 2016 New York 2016 New York 2016 Fenway 1, 2016
Fenway 2, 2018
MSG 2022
St. Paul, 1, St. Paul 2 2023
MSG 2024, MSG 2024
Philadelphia 2024
"I play good, hard-nosed basketball.
Things happen in the game. Nothing you
can do. I don't go and say,
"I'm gonna beat this guy up."
Mon, Apr 30, 12:45 AM Pacific
If the outcome of Game 3 was justice, the officiating of Game 3 was not. And I am excluding the Karel Rachunek wave-off goal controvesy... a decision which was rendered in Toronto rather than Manhattan.
Look. The Buffalo Sabres are a superior team. When they are playing at their best, they will defeat the Rangers over the long haul. And even when the upstaters are not playing their best, it requires a near-perfect performance by the underdogs to make a series of it.
Frankly... had the zebræ (Paul Devorski and Dennis Larue) merely called the game equitably, the Blueshirts would have had the contest cinched in regulation.
Dis-ir-regardless whether you agree with NHL Operations that Rachunek's right foot made an explicit kicking motion... the fact remains that Ales Kotalik's unwhistled hook is what prevented the Gotham blueliner from tapping the pill home with his weapon instead of his blade.
After the long delay in overruling the tally, the Rangers should have been awarded a power play for their trouble.
But the list of grievances reads like a telephone book. The Sabres routinely set up picks with impunity, got away with stick-holds and received other dispensations as well, while the Rangers were penalized for everything save some overlooked hooks in the second overtime and a possible dive by Jaromir Jagr on the Drew Stafford punition.
Now I have no beef with the cross-check levied against Brendan Shanahan which led to the visitor's lone marker on the ensuing power play. In my opinion, Shanny was okay with his first nudge on Kotalik from behind. It was that second shove which went too far. Was it a cross-check? Of course, not. Was it roughing or boarding or just plain too much physicality? Fersure. Shanny has been at this long enough to know he went one step beyond where he should have gone. And it cost New York plenty.
• • •
There were several differences Sunday afternoon that are worth mentioning:
Lindy Ruff was unable to match his checkers against JJ and Michael Nylander. Instead, Tom Renney countered Daniel Briere with the Blueshirts' first line - a master stroke which proved the grand equalizer.
It wasn't so much a case of JJ & Co. scoring at will against a trio more known for their own offense than backchecking... it was a case of territorial and time control.
This was one of those rare situations where I did not mind at all the dipsy-doodling and cycling the Czechs like to manifest. For every second the puck was deep inside the Sabre end of the rink, it was 200 feet distant from Henrik Lundqvist.
And another thing... for some reason the enemy stopped practicing their three-across blue line stand, daring the Rangers to penetrate the phalanx. That may have been a case of Renney's minions readily responding with dump-and-chase which is an example of (arguably) the single most important aspect of the match:
The Rangers were patient and meticulous about advancing the pill in trimesters.
Instead of attempting to force the offense with fluent rushes and elegant cross-ice passing, the home team was content to move the rubber in stages... to take whatever route the Sabres were willing to yield.
When the puck was in the Ranger zone, they did whatever it took to get it out of harm's way, to push it - by any means possible - into the neutral zone. This tactic clearly frustrated the Sabres, who struggled the entire game to generate flow in their attack.
At the other end, New York took whatever the Sabre formation would allow. If a dump was all they could achieve, then dump they did and the subsequent forechecking kept the bad guys bottled up in their own zone for long stretches.
In fact, the flexibility of New York's penetration style pretty much denied the Sabres trap and transition. I don't recall a single odd-man rush after the midway point of Period 1 when the clubs skated five a side.
Renney even formulated a blue-line stand of his own, evident in Period 2 when Rangers aggressively defended their own zone and tried to cause turnovers by stepping up.
Another reason for Buffalo's lack of zoom might have been the slushy ice surface.
As much as it crippled the Gotham attack, it doubly handicapped the Sabres' rush, which is pretty one-dimensional and relies upon speed.
Did Jack Durkin receive orders to turn up the thermostat?
We'll never know.
As for the overtime... I gotta tell you I was wrong about this.
I though fersure that the longer the game endured, the better were Buffalo's chances, what with their roster being younger than New York's... and given Ruff's better time-management of his lines.
The trio of Jed Ortmeyer, Brad Isbister and Blair Betts saw less then ten minutes of ice... in a game that lasted nearly 100 minutes. I.e., Renney was burning up his other trios.
I again assert that having Thomas Pöck in the lineup for Izzie would have been the prudent approach, given Michael Rozsival's knee sensitivity and the exposure for overtime.
It's not as if Izzie did all that much in his three shifts per period. And with Pöck, Renney has the opportunity to spell his other rearguard every few shifts. Jimminy Christmas, Rozsy skated 38¼ minutes! And Fedor Tyutin played 34 of which seven came under stressful penalty-kill conditions.
By contrast, only defenseman Dmitri Kalinin approached Tyutin's 34. And Kalinin played fewer than five minutes of PK.
Fixed: That horrible gaffe of Game 2 in which Marcel Hossa and Betts covered the same point man on the penalty kill resulting in an open lane for Brian Campbell's goal midway into Period 2. On Sunday, the Blueshirts were regularly communicating assignments on the PK and the only goal the Sabres scored came when the Rangers played the points too passively, allowing Buffalo time to set up and begin their interference patterns in front of Henke.
I give Rozsival my first star of the game, followed by King Henrik. Rozsy made only one significant blunder and otherwise deftly skated the puck out of danger time and time again.
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How about the tripping penalty on the Rangers that was waved off because of offsides? What, anything that happends after the whistle is exempt from penalties!? It's a free for all!!!
The penalty called on Stafford along the boards (Jagr took a dive) was garbage.
It goes both ways - get over it and deal with it.
8/26/98 - Cleveland
10/7/00 - Detroit
4/25/03 - Cleveland
6/23/06 - Pittsburgh