Well, it's only one game, but I'm still scratching my head:
A team starving for goals puts a career defenseman (Jason Strudwick) on the fourth line and moves a center on the fourth line who rarely scores (Ryan Hollweg)...to off-wing on the third line.
I guess I can somewhat understand that a callup from Hartford---which likely will happen by Saturday because Ryan Callahan has been placed on IR----would play minimal minutes and that scoring is long overdue from the top two lines.
Especially Scott Gomez, returning tonight against his former club for the first time, Brendan Shanahan, who leads the league in shots but has one goal, and Chris Drury and
Jaromir Jagr, one goal each.
If I were GM, I wouldn;t have played it safe and given a kid a shot for a couple games. But because that hasn;t happened underscroes the importance of this game.
We'll all be watching, along with one other interested observer: Phoenix GM and former Ranger exec Don Maloney, who was spotted in the corridors.
Comments (10)
MSG is empty!
Anybody else sick of Jagr reaching for the puck with his stick like an idiot every time someone takes it away from him? Why can't he just skate to the player and blast him with a body check into the boards? Or at least lean on him. What a stupid lazy player.
He sure is lazy. Shoudn't be the captain. Malik with the usual giveaways. Every time he clears the puck under pressure he shoots it right through the middle. Solid effort so far from the rest of the team.
Man, giving Orr 8 + mins of ice time is pure stupidity. he's a total waste. Ged rid of him already. Finally, looks like we have a win under our belts!
Good win tonight--jagr needs some space, thats all.
Agreed on Orr--a marginal 4th liner. We could do much better.
Dawes and Lundqvist save Renney's job. Now we will remain in obscurity and medicrity for few more years.
Stop whinning girls you actually won a game. Barely, but a win is a win!
Can you get a refund for those multi millions spent on the FA's?
More importantly can your team stop with the Gomez in NY bull sh^t! Ohhhhhhhh we won for Scotty. Ohhhhhhhh Scotty!
Pathetic!
do u people even watch hockey. they won they played well as a team solid defensively. just shut up
Holy crap most of them showed up tonight!! Scotty still hasn't justified his salary. Drury had some really good chances and was looking like the Drury from the playoffs last year, and what do you know Jags actually carried the puck! It's still annoying to me that he coasts to the bench on line changes, but he did have a couple of really good defensive plays.
That Hossa song is stupid.
Hollweg isn't the fourth line center, and hasn't been all year, or since he's been in the NHL for that matter. Betts/Duninsky have filled that role. And it hardly matters which wing a guy like Hollweg plays. And Strudwick had a surprisingly strong game on the fourth line, with good play along the boards in the offensive zone.