B R O A D W A Y***B L U E S H I R T S

rival.

Jwmcc wrote:

Safe to say tonight is the last "gimme" game vs. Atlanta. Here is the rest of the schedule:

@PIT
vs.NJ
@CAR
@BOS
vs.MTL
vs.PHI
@PHI

If the Rangers win tonight and Florida loses to the Flyers without a losers' point, that puts them seven points clear of the drop zone with seven to go. I'm wondering if Valiquette will ever get a start under Tortorella or is he just going to ride the King until April 12th.

C'MON YOU BLUESHIRTS!
Jw

the BOS/MTL/PHI/PHI sequence scares me. I don't see the rangers clinching a spot until the last 3 games or so of the season, montreal and philly play us tough. the important thing is to get points, if they lose at least get it to OT.

Bathgate66

todays papers covered how torts believes a non playoff team, ( like toights opponents atlanta ) can give us big problems.
1 game and 1 day at a time.

Lets Go Rangers

Jwmcc

Wow...just...wow

rival.

wow is right. not to be too critical, but vally didn't have the game we needed from him tonight... had a good game, but should of/could of had a few of those atlanta goals.

but as i said a few posts above we need POINTS... not happy we didn't get 2 tonight, but we did still get a valuable 1.

greaticedtea

big way to end the period boys


lets keep it going for the next two!

rival.

i'm so angry i can spit.

Bathgate66

singularity wrote:

i'm so angry i can spit.

hearbreaker.

anyhow, wait till tom against martin and the devils.

in case anyone has forgotten or missed it, you can vote for the steven mcdopnald extra effort award here.

i predioct the winner will be ryan callahan or possibly sean avery ......

rival.

Bathgate66 wrote:

singularity wrote:

i'm so angry i can spit.

hearbreaker.

anyhow, wait till tom against martin and the devils.

in case anyone has forgotten or missed it, you can vote for the steven mcdopnald extra effort award here.

i predioct the winner will be ryan callahan or possibly sean avery ......

blair betts!

Bathgate66

the Rangers will attempt to extend their record against the Devils to 12-2-3 with Avery in the lineup. This is the night on which Henrik Lundqvist will attempt to extend his record against Brodeur to 18-6-4. This is the night on which the faltering Blueshirts will attempt to solidify their tenuous hold on a playoff spot.

igotid88

Haha Avery is funny.

Dissident67

good game tonight, hopefully this will start a strong run into the playoffs

PatrickBateman

good game tonight....they may face the Devs in the playoffs ...tonight gained a litle more confidence...Avery is a silly goose

xavier mcdaniel

i thought it was one of their best games of the years and probably the best from start to finish in the tortorella era.

Bathgate66

Avery Abuse

NEW YORK - It seems like every time the Rangers take on the Devils, the devil incarnate himself, Sean Avery, has something to do with the decision.

Tonight’s 3-0 Ranger win was no exception.

With an assist and a non-fight against David Clarkson, the Grate One had his presence felt each minute he was on the ice.

“It’s old news right now,” said coach John Tortorella. “Sean Avery is part of the hockey team. He’s a disciplined player for us. He’s an effective player for us. I just want to make sure we keep Sean in the team and not make it the team and Sean.”

Very well, and Avery is a different player. But as long as the NHL continues to allow the forward to be an unfair target, there will be questions about Avery.

All night long the Devils were seeking out No. 16. He was bumped bruised and tossed around by packs of faceless players. And when David Clarkson went after Avery in the third, the referees allowed Avery to be rag dolled to the ice, not once but twice.

And the league doesn’t just turn a blind eye, it actually sanctions the abuse. The referees sit there and unfairly let Avery take his lumps. He took a pummeling and then had to sit for two minutes on a roughing call? That’s ridiculous. If Avery was good enough to be reinstated, then he should be shown the same impartial on-ice arbitration as every other player in the rink.

“I think [the refs] look at him differently than the rest of us,” said Ranger captain Chris Drury. “For whatever reason, because he was never suspended for anything on-ice. I think he got a tough ride. He’s been competing like crazy and showing discipline.”

Sure Avery and his mouth brought all of this on, but he did the time for the crime and now has a second chance. Unfortunately the National Hypocrite League doesn’t see it that way and continues to persecute a player for a past sin with time served. If Avery was suspended for a cocaine addiction, frequented a prostitute, did steroids, or anything else illegal he would have been welcomed back with open arms for his courage and strength to get through the tough time. Heck he may have been a Masterton nominee for it.

But all Avery did was say things about his ex-girlfriend and agitate players. It makes you wonder about the thin skin of the NHL. These players have competed on a high level since grade school. They have to have heard it all. What does No. 16 say that makes them so crazy? Sure he gets personal, but come-on. Have they ever just thought of just ignoring him?

Of course not, which makes Avery a target. To his credit Avery is a changed person. No longer does he send barbs out through the press. Two years ago he called Clarkson a “bonehead minor leaguer” after being targeted and now Avery is a little more restrained with his remarks.

“You know it’s a 3-0 game and I don’t think there’s anything to gain at that point,” he said and also added, “It certainly takes discipline for sure. You fight for your team and for your teammates. At that point, I didn’t need to fight for either of them.”

Clarkson received a 10 minute misconduct, but Colin Campbell needs to step in and suspend the Devils forward. If the league is serious about cutting down on fighting, they need to do something about the mugging that took place in the third. It’s only right.

Imagine if the same thing happened with Brandon Dubinsky, Ryan Callahan, or even Chris Drury. The question would then not be if, but how long should Clarkson sit. But because it’s Avery, the National Hypocrite League decides it’s ok for it to happen. Because Avery is persona non-grata in this league, the biased calls and cheap shots are allowed to continue.

Yet, maybe in the long run that’s a good thing. Avery is trying to improve and become a better player and person and with each passing day, the Rangers little devil is proving that he’s already above the hypocrites that run this show.

Bathgate66

April 01, 2009
No More Fooling Around With Avery
Who needs an April Fool's joke when you have this: Sean Avery is no longer a story, not after behaving like an angel versus the Devils. "It's old news now," Ranger coach John Tortorella said when asked about Avery after the Rangers blanked the Devils 3-0. "I hope we can move by all the stories about what's going to happen to Sean," he said when asked a second time about Avery (no one was going to risk asking him a third question, not after this response).

"He has bought into the team concept and is part of the club," Tortorella went on. "What I'd like to focus on is that the team found a way to win and Sean was a big part of that by playing hockey. Sean Avery is part of the hockey team. He's a disciplined player for us, he's an effective player for us. I just want to make sure we keep Sean within the team and not [have] the team [on one side] and Sean [on the other side]. Sean has definitely bought into that."

Even frequent antagonist Martin Brodeur, he who refused to shake Avery's hand after the playoffs last year, said that Avery didn't do anything worth noting. "He didn't say a word to me," said the Jersey netminder, failing to note that Avery behaved himself even after taking a Brodeur stick to the chin. "He was just in front of me. That's just battling. That's normal. I just wanted to get my space." Yeah, that's normal -- stick to the chin. Cough-cough. "He was all right," Brodeur went on. "He didn't do much."

So just how did Avery do it (or not do it, as the case may be)? "I know there was a lot of anticipation beforehand, for sure," Avery said of facing Brodeur again as a Ranger. "I just went into it the same as I have for a lot of games -- just trying to get focused and knowing what I have to do and knowing what Torts expects of me." Well, you can see why "Torts" doesn't want to waste time on this story -- there doesn't seem to be much of story there anymore.

Except for two things -- opponents keep running Avery, and referees keep looking the other way. "He has that ability to get guys ticked off on the other side," Chris Drury said of Avery's ablity to anger opponents just by his mere presence, even when he behaves himself -- of course, you can argue that that is even more irritating than when he lives up to their expectations of him, and nothing is more irritating than when he hurts you on the scoreboard.

"He played a heck of a game," Drury continued. "He made a great play to Gomer on Callahan's goal. He just drives the other team crazy, that's for sure. That thing with Clarkson could have escalated fast. We know Sean is tough enough and willing enough to do that, but in a 3-0 game at home, no need to do it. He made a great play by not doing it, showing his discipline -- a win there meant more to him than getting into a scrap." "It helps us out a ton," linemate Ryan Callahan said. "You can see it, when he's on his game, all the attention goes to him -- it lets us have some room."

"It certainly takes discipline, for sure," Avery said of not going at it with Clarkson late in the game, letting himself get rag-dolled to the ice twice before the refs finally stepped in to break things up. "It's a 3-0 game at that point. I don't think that there's anything to gain by doing anything at that point. You fight for your team and for your teammates. At that point, I didn't need to fight for either of them, so there's really no point."

"I was trying to spark the team," Clarkson lied -- after all, it was 3-0 late in the game, the opportunity to spark the team long gone. "He had his one hand cocked back in a fist. Say he throws a punch and hits me. I'm the guy that loses. I was trying to spark the team and ended up getting kicked out." Maybe the NHL should remand Clarkson to an anger management program so that he can decide not to do anything there, the way Avery did.

Then there are the officials. Avery has been turning the other cheek (well, most of the time) and the referees have been turning a blind eye (almost all the time). He actually got a roughing minor during the Clarkson fracas -- "I don't really know what happened there," Avery said. "There's a lot going on in a big scrum." "They give him a penalty for not having a glove on," Drury said. "That's a little insane -- he's getting rag-dolled, showing all the composure in the world not to do anything, and somehow he still gets one."

But he finally got a call from the refs, who gave Clarkson a double minor for roughing, even though it took two takedowns before the referee raised his arm to sanction the Devil agitator. "He lets the guy throw him down three times, the refs finally say, 'OK, he's not doing anything,' so that's good," Drury said. "I think he's getting a tough ride some nights. He's been competing like crazy, his discipline has been outstanding -- the more and more he does that, the more and more the refs will say, 'Wow, he really is disciplined, he's not yapping, he's not doing stuff after the whistle,' the calls will start coming his way."

So far, it hasn't happened, and the Rangers let everyone know after the loss in Pittsburgh on Saturday. "Glen and I made a point the other day that we just want to be treated fairly," Tortorella said -- Tortorella made his point in public during his post-game press confernece, but mentioning Glen Sather as having made the point means that he made the case in private to the NHL. But Tortorella just wants to drop the subject now. "We don't want to be a bunch of whiners," he emphasized.

Still, Drury had more to say on the subject. "They look at him differently than the rest of us, for whatever reason," he said. "He's never been suspended on ice. From my perspective, just call it even for everybody, for forty guys on the ice plus goalies. Whatever's good for us, good for them, we'll live with that." Avery's reaction to the support he has gotten from his coach and teammates about the way he's been treated is another new thing. "We're a family here," he said. "We go to bat for each other -- that's what makes a team. I know we'd do it for anybody and it just happens to me in this case."

So opponents continue to drive themselves batty over Avery -- "I just wanted to finish my hit," Mike Rupp lied about going after Avery in the closing moments of the game. "I don't know if someone threw something from the stands and hit him and knocked him down, but he went down pretty easy." Even when Bobby Holik scrapped with his good friend Scott Gomez, he blamed Avery. "To be honest with you, I thought it was Avery," he said. "I had no idea who it was. I was trying to poke at the puck and somebody came and you know I don't discriminate."

Through it all, the new edition of Avery -- Zenmaster Sean -- trusts in a simple method of coping. "I think about a happy place," he said. Yeah, that and plastering Johnny Oduya into the wall with a thunderous check.

Real April Fool's jokes at Rangers Report, NY Sports Day, and Hockey Rodent. Only a handful of actual news stories on the day after the Rangers had the day off -- the Post, Newsday, Blue Notes, and Prospect Park. Bad news on the scoreboard watch, as Montreal and Florida both kept pace with big wins last night, making tomorrow night's game in Carolina that much bigger. If ever the Rangers needed to find that consistency that has been eluding them since October, now is the time. Michal Rozsival is unsure whether he will be ready to play, but he skated today for the first time since sustaining a knee injury -- see Ranger Rants reporting from practice today.

Bathgate66

http://ordinaryleastsquare.typepad.com/ ... 970c-300wi

Bathgate66

fucking stoked foir the game tonight.
how huge is this one? ( and every other of the 5 remaining )


http://www.blueshirtbulletinplus.com/20 ... -time.html

Crunching Numbers at Crunch Time




There has been a remarkable symmetry to paths the Rangers' closest playoff rivals have taken as the season winds down and they jockey for playoff position. The two teams nipping at the Rangers' heels, vying with them as of this moment for the last two playoff spots, have rebounded recently after freefalling through the standings, the two teams just ahead of them have been running hot for quite a while, and the two teams just beyond that have stumbled of late.

Looking over their shoulders, the Rangers see the ninth place Panthers going 3-0 after a 1-4-3 slump knocked them out of the top eight. Montreal, one point back in eighth, is 3-0-1 in its last four, 9-5-3 since they sent Alexei Kovalev home for two games, Kovalev scoring ten goals and seven assists since. Even one step further back, Buffalo is 3-0-1 since their loss to the Rangers after going 3-7-2 from the time Scott Gomez collided with goalie Ryan Miller, knocking him out of action -- Miller is back, but time has just about run out on the Sabres.

Meanwhile, the division leading Devils are 1-6-1 since Martin Brodeur's record setting win, which culminated runs of 8-1 and 13-3 -- Brodeur has allowed 22 goals in losing his last six straight. They're not in much danger of losing the division crown, but they are in danger of going into the playoffs as dead men walking -- indeed, talk of Brent Sutter being coach of the year has devolved into talk of Lou Lamoriello doing to him what he has done to other coaches in the past, firing him in the final days of the season. The second place Flyers, more in danger of being caught and losing home ice advantage in the playoffs, are 0-3-1 in their last four and 8-8 since March 1.

Just ahead of the Rangers are two teams who made the same adjustments the Rangers did -- replacing their head coaches and making the right trade deadline moves. Pittsburgh is 15-2-2 since dropping their first game after changing coaches in mid-February. Carolina didn't get immediate results from their coaching change, but they're 19-7-2 since losing their first game after the all-star break to the Rangers and were a remarkable 10-1-2 in March, winning their last six in a row heading into tonight's match against the Rangers. The difference for them has been their power play, which went 16-for-56 (nearly 30%) in March coming off a 5-for-55 run (less than 10%) in February.

Like the Pens, the Rangers have done well (though not quite as well) since their coaching change, going 9-4-1 after dropping John Tortorella's first two games, which capped a 2-8-4 skid that put them in this predicament. But they are just 2-2-1 since a 7-2 run -- though another way to look at that is that they are 6-3-1 in their last ten since their last visit to Carolina. In those last ten games, Ryan Callahan has six goals, Nik Antropov five, Sean Avery and Nik Zherdev four each, Chris Drury and Brandon Dubinsky three each, and Markus Naslund and Fred Sjostrom two each. Since the arrival of Tortorella and his offense-first system, Callahan has eight goals, Zherdev seven, Antropov six, Drury and Naslund five each, and Scott Gomez four -- balanced scoring.

But they still need more from their power play, which has gone 6-for-55 (just over 10%) in the eleven games since (and incuding) their last visit to Carolina, a 3-0 loss -- they are actually 1-for-36 in nine of those eleven games, going 5-for-19 in the other two. At least their league-leading penalty killing will put up a formidable obstance to the Hurricanes' power play, whcih is 6-for-21 during their six-game win streak. The Rangers' PK has not allowed a goal in its last 25 times short and has held opponents to a 5-for-67 (7.4%) success rate since the oaching change. With six of the Rangers' last seven games and seven of Carolina's last nine games decided by one goal, one clutch special teams goal or kill could make the difference.

Tortorella, realizing that the power play remains a sore spot, has simplified matters for the game tonight. Michal Rozsival is close to returning to action, but will skip this game after a hard morning skate -- see Ranger Rants and Blue Notes reporting from Raleigh. Previews of tonight's game and the final playoff push: Newsday, Record, Daily News, Journal News, Post, NYR.com, NHL.com here and here, Raleigh N&O. More from yesterday's practice at Blue Notes and Rangers Report. The Wolf Pack, having already clinched, hung on to win last night -- see Howlings, WP.com, and Beyond the Blueshirts. Other prospect news at Prospect Park.

Finally, and I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but here is a slightly dated clip of Hitler as a Ranger fan reacting to Vancouver signing Mats Sundin earlier this season -- this clip, from the 2004 German movie "The Downfall" about Hitler's last days as the Allies closed in on his Berlin bunker, has been used often with its subtitles replaced as a comic send-up of various sports teams and other targets.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXxg7msf ... r_embedded

NCBRI

Good game so far. Hoping my Canes can pull off another big win. These last few games are going to decide who plays who in the playoffs. 4th place and home ice in the 1st Round are still up for grabs.

Rygar

NCBRI wrote:

Good game so far. Hoping my Canes can pull off another big win. These last few games are going to decide who plays who in the playoffs. 4th place and home ice in the 1st Round are still up for grabs.

Merci beaucoup!!!!

rival.

panic button has been pressed.

tough game last night. early on i had a gut feeling that the rangers wouldn't win that one. the game just kinda had one of those feelings.

no penalty on the play after the whistle in which the carolina player dropped his gloves and punched antropov in the face? what's going on there?