Report Card: CMB 3 @ NYR 5
Tuesday - December 03, 2002
| 12/3/02 |
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| Columbus Blue Jackets |
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| New York Rangers |
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| Player | Ice Time | Grade | Comments |
| Dan Blackburn | C | Columbus' first goal, big
boner by Karpa up at the top of the circles which allowed Vyborny a clear
lane, but Blackburn stayed back too far in his net which gave Vyborny plenty
of room to make a move for the goal. Even though the play happened quickly,
if Dan gets two strides out Vyborny has nowhere to go. Second goal, another
case of being too deep, and really, he's just very bad on breakaways and
open skaters at this stage of his career. He's got deer in the headlights
syndrome and freezes up when a skater is coming at him, where Dan will
eventually learn that he has to make the shooter react to HIM, not the
other way around. Made some good saves later in the 2nd period. Third goal
not his fault, a PP goal with a very slick pass from the right point past
Blackburn for an easy tip in. Had a good 3rd period, though, with a few
big saves.
Despite what he might say, Blackburn needs a break right now. Maybe it's not fatigue, but he's just not all that sharp. It's too often lately that his fundementals are the sole reason for a goal against. He'll probably be great someday, but right now the Rangers NEED another option. Not necessarily a #1 goalie, but another viable option. |
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| Brian Leetch | 4:17 | n/a | Blocked a shot in the 1st, x-rays show he bruised his foot and stayed out the rest of the game. |
| Tom Poti | 29:27 | A- | Poti and Malakhov were the unsung heros of this game. Leetch leaves early, Kaspar is out so both are without their partners. But both ended up getting a TON of ice time and did very well under that adversity. For people who say Poti is "soft", give me a break. No, he's no big hitter. He doesn't play mean. But how often do you see Poti avoid the hit, not step in front of his man or shy away from contact? Dvorak is soft. Poti isn't. His knack of breaking up the play with his long stick and being one of the quickest defensemen in the whole freakin' NHL to get the puck out of his zone is worth ten Klouceks. |
| Vladimir Malakhov | 28:50 | A- | Wow, a +5 on the night!! That's amazing. Take what I said in Poti's column and apply it to Malakhov's - one of the unsung heros of the game. |
| Dale Purinton | 21:51 | C+ | I haven't liked Dale's game lately, he's taking too many risky chances with the puck, but he took a safer chance by coming into the zone about 15 feet after a rebound and getting off a shot which Marc Denis flubbed with his glove hand. Blew the play on the PK in the 3rd, caught up too high and didn't try hard enough to get back to the open man in front. Logged a ton of time. Both good and bad game. |
| Dave Karpa | 15:48 | C | Good God! Welcome back, Davey. Mere seconds after the Rangers scored their first, Karpa comes too far out of his position backing into the zone, BUMPS INTO LEFEBVRE KNOCKING THEM BOTH DOWN, which allowed Vyborny a clear lane to the goal. Doesn't get much uglier. Almost comical. Went off for a skate repair soon after. I hope he checked his side view mirrors, too. He played okay after that, though. A few shot blocks. Way too slow with the puck in his own zone. |
| Sylvain Lefebvre | 19:58 | B | Did some decent work with the defense being down two regulars for most of the game. Looked a bit shaky at times, but a +1 means he wasn't on the ice for many against... or was on for a lot of goals for. |
| Eric Lindros | 18:30 | B+ | Must've knocked 3-4 people off their feet with huge hits in the 1st period alone, and about a half dozen in the game. Ended up taking a pair of penalties in the 2nd period, the second of which was very touchy. He was skating hard, finally rewarded when he crashed the net on Bure's great 3rd period effort and got the rebound for the game winner. Good game. |
| Rem Murray | 15:29 | B- | Had some good PK shifts, didn't do much at even strength. I wish Murray would hit more, but I do like how he's never afraid of getting hit and always gets right back up. |
| Sandy McCarthy | 11:00 | C | Neither good nor terrible, but not such a hot game overall. 2nd period he had a nice shot opportunity in the right slot but instead tried to pull some fancy delay with the puck around the sliding defenseman move, which bombed. Gimme a break, Jaromir. Shoot the puck. Him and Karpa were the only minuses on the team tonight. Pulled off the Lindros line in the 3rd. |
| Petr Nedved | 24:07 | A | Man, is this line flying! It seems like every other shift they have a great scoring chance. And Nedved isn't leaving a thing on the ice, playing hard almost every shift (no one plays hard every shift). His effort on the Bure hat trick goal was awesome: Nedved at the end of a long shift mostly in the Ranger end, uses his last bit of gas to catch up to a loose puck and feed a nice elevated pass over to Bure for the goal. Look at all the ice time. He's been playing like the #1 center on this team, and getting the ice and points with it. 3 assists, +3, 3 shots, 19-10 on faceoffs. |
| Ronald Petrovicky | 15:42 | A | What a strong game. If this was a playoff game, Petro's preformance would be something you remembered. Dished out hits all night but also took hits, including THREE separate minor injuries which he played through. His grit and tenacity is just the perfect fit for Nedved and Bure right now. 2 assists, +3, 3 shots. |
| Pavel Bure | 19:32 | A+ | First goal he was on the
easy end of a nice Petro pass across the slot, Bure buries it. Second goal
was another Petro primary assist - Nedved won the draw, Petro feeds it
a short distance to Bure at the top of the circle, rips it, takes a very
fortunate deflection off a stick and hits the top corner in the blink of
an eye. In the 3rd period with the score 3-3 he made the play of the game,
arriving at the puck at the same time on an icing call, fighting for it,
winning it, HOLDING IT IN THE CORNER FOR 15 SECOND WHILE THE RANGERS CHANGED,
working the puck out of the corner and driving to the net with a stuff-in
shot, which Lindros put in the rebound of. Plays like that are supposed
to be the work of an Adam Graves in his prime or Keith Tkachuk, not a Bure.
Brilliant play. FINALLY, capped off his amazing night by lunging forward
for a shot on a 2-on-1 and hit it for the hat trick.
3 GOALS, 1 ASSIST, +4, 9 SHOTS. When was the last time one Ranger played a game this good? Not in years! |
| Mark Messier | 21:52 | C+ | As soon as he gets almost all of Ranger fandom back in his corner with a solid season to date, the last week or so he's been a bit lifeless. Slow. Not terrible, just going through the motions. Had a breakaway in the 2nd period and made a pretty good shot on it. Messier improved as the game went on. An excellent 20-10 on faceoffs. |
| Radek Dvorak | 16:23 | C | Gave it a decent (not great) shot at coming back to break up a 2-on-1 and the puck went just under his stick. He hustled, but was mostly ineffective at both ends. |
| Mikael Samuelsson | 19:14 | D- | He's getting back to his timid ways. Too many times tonight he could've made something out of a play with some drive but instead looked for a pass or dump in. I wrote that before his timidity killed him again in the 3rd period, tried a tiny pass into traffic in his own zone, lost it, took a hooking penalty behind the net. Later in the period ANOTHER bad short pass in his own zone into traffic, leading to a great 2-on-1 chance. Samuelsson was practically trying to give the game away. His worst game as a Ranger that I can remember. |
| Ted Donato | 2:44 | C | Not enough ice time to comment. |
| Matthew Barnaby | 3:15 | C | Got one or two shifts with Lindros in the 3rd. |
| Rico Fata | 2:51 | C | Rico drives me nuts. On his few shifts (4 to be exact) flies all over the ice but can't complete a freaking pass or dump it in without it getting intercepted! The NHL game is still a second too fast for Rico. Send him back to Hartford when Holik comes back, because he's not improving here, and won't with 3 minutes of ice. |
| COACHING STAFF: | B+ | I'm going to give Trottier and staff good credit tonight for two things: 1. Taking Barnaby and Fata from the 4th line and giving them a few shifts on top lines in the 3rd period to change things up and give some top liners a rest. 2. Trottier's post-game comments where he said he's happy with the win but there's a lot of work to do. Amen! THAT'S what I want to hear, Bryan! Push them into becoming a good team instead of being pleased with mediocrity. | |
| 1st PERIOD: | A- | A fantastic period, one the Rangers dominated early and late with a stretch of about 5 minutes in the middle where it was even. Rangers outshot Columbus 14-7 in the period, and it was probably 7 or 8 to zero at one point. Finished their checks, passes were accurate, d-zone coverage was mostly good, dominated on faceoffs (21-7) - they really just overwhelmed the Blue Jackets. | |
| 2nd PERIOD: | C+ | About 55/45 in pace and scoring chances in favor of Columbus. Rangers had some great chances, though, and Denis made up for a lousy 1st with a strong 2nd. Rangers didn't have the same jump or hitting to their game in the period, but didn't totally slack off. Columbus also played a lot better than they did in the 1st. | |
| 3rd PERIOD: | B | The beginning of the period certainly looked like a bad come-from-behind loss was on it's way. Rangers weren't skating, Columbus was. Then the Rangers turned on the offense like they did in the Tampa game the other day, two quick goals and they skate away from disaster again, riding on Bure's back. | |
| OVERALL: | B | Halleujah, it's a .500 record!
0-4-1 in their five previous attempts to reach .500 and finally they hit
mediocrity! Haha! Woo! Look out Detroit! Really, though, a bad team has
to take small steps at a time towards becoming a good team, and this was
a step, as pretty and ugly as it was. Blackburn was shaky, the defense
was equally spotty and really the whole game was won by Bure, Nedved, Petrovicky,
Poti and Malakhov. It was not a very solid team game after the 1st period.
It was individual efforts, especially Bure. It's not the ideal way to win,
but hell, it's finally nice they're back to .500 and have something solid
to build on.
Something else to keep your eye on, a lot of players are getting banged up lately. Leetch is day to day, Kaspar out with a bad back, Petro took a lot of lumps, so did Poti, etc. |
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| 2002-2003 record: | 28 GP | 12-12-4-0 | 28 PTS | 76 GF | 89 GA | ||
| 2001-2002 record: | 28 GP | 17-9-2-1 | 37 PTS | 84 GF | 75 GA | ||
| Scratches: | Bobby Holik (hip flexor)
Darius Kasparaitis (back spasms) Krzysztof Oliwa (healthy) Mike Richter (concussion) |
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| created by: | Pete Rocha, © 2002. procha@optonline.net | ||
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