| 12/05/02 |
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| New York Rangers |
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| Philadelphia Flyers |
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| Player | Ice Time | Grade | Comments |
| Dan Blackburn | C+ | Excellent job in the 1st
period. Didn't really have to make any saves on open men, but did face
a lot of shots through traffic. Great job. And only two minutes
into the 2nd period... it's another fundamental error. Recchi was at a
sharp angle, Blackburn seemed to do a good job hugging the post, but not
good enough. He sprung a leak somewhere and the puck dribbled through.
Mix in a few good saves in the period... and then another usual Blackburn
error: Going down too early. Granted, it was a hell of a shot by Roenick,
but mark my words, the league KNOWS to shoot high on Blackburn. Many of
the Flyer shots tonight were to the upper corners.
A quiet 3rd period where he didn't have much work, and then... the moment of truth. Penalty shot in OT, 36.5 seconds left... drumroll...... did anyone really think Blackburn had a chance? As I've been saying here for over a month, he's not good on breakaways. Deer in the headlights. It was deer in the headlights on the penalty shot. Stayed too far back and was easily frozen by a head bob, Handzus went to the backhand and game over. Blackburn played very well in stretches tonight and held the Rangers in in the 1st period, but he also didn't face a single odd man rush or breakaway the entire night until the penalty shot in OT. He's great stopping low shots through traffic or in traffic, which many of the Flyer shots were tonight. But when he's forced to move, or, oddly enough, DOESN'T have a screen in front of him and the player shoots high, it's almost a guaranteed goal. Blackburn's still a rookie in many respects, so you can't really get angry at him for still having these on-going flaws, but I'm getting tired of seeing the same kind of goals go in on him all the time, and I'm getting REALLY sick of the Rangers being unable to change the goalie every now and then. At this point, I don't care if Sather brings someone in from the wild like a Guy Hebert just for a game here and there, they HAVE to give Blackburn some days off to rest and to reflect on his game and to practice A LOT at what he does wrong. |
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| Darius Kasparaitis | 23:15 | B | No huge hits, got to scrambling a few times, but overall a decent game. |
| Tom Poti | 24:09 | B | Poti had to do what he had to do on the OT hooking call. But a penalty shot? Holy hell. That's ridiculous! Handzus was in the clear for all of about a SECOND, and fell down AFTER he took the shot!! That was a terrible call. |
| Vladimir Malakhov | 23:20 | B | Good and bad, mostly good. Definitely were a few bad moments, though. And he was also the hardest hitter on the blueline tonight, and that shouldn't be with people like Kaspar and Purinton back there. |
| Dale Purinton | 22:13 | B | I think I want the old Dale Purinton back. Yeah, the one who takes bad penalties, but also the one who NEVER would've stood by while Brashear and Primeau took runs at Lindros. He is much improved but he's also turning into a run of the mill defenseman: Okay defensively, not great, and nothing else really special now that he doesn't fight anymore. |
| Dave Karpa | 18:01 | B | Got just enough of a Flyer breaking in alone on Blackburn with a hook in the 1st... enough to knock him off balance but not enough for a penalty. Nice play. I thought Karpa was one of the better d-men tonight, but he also had a few adventures. |
| Sylvain Lefebvre | 17:48 | B | He was the best Ranger defenseman in his own zone tonight. No defenseman was outright bad, but I don't really remember Lefebvre having those touchy moments the other 5 had. |
| Bobby Holik | 17:09 | B+ | Holik was all over the place as far as lines, but in the 2nd period on it seemed the place he was the most was centering Barnaby on the left and Lindros, yes, Lindros, on the right. And where ever he played, Holik played great. Got the Rangers first of the game by pouncing on a rebound about 15 feet out in the slot, rifling it to the top shelf above a diving Cechmanek. Assisted on Lindros' goal with a nice drop pass at the blueline. Lots of hits, decent on faceoffs, it's nice having a healthy Holik back. |
| Matthew Barnaby | 14:23 | B | This line was our best, and Barnaby had a good game. 2 assists, good agitator work, then zipped straight off the ice and into the locker room after taking what looked like a knee-to-knee from Brashear. Funny moment - Flyer fans cheering wildly after Barnaby got hurt, as he's limping to the locker room people are screaming at him and Barnaby stops to give the fans some lip back. Good stuff. |
| Eric Lindros | 19:37 | B+ | He was definitely a target of the Flyers tonight, epsecially in the 1st period. He must've been run at half a dozen times, but Lindros didn't back down and dished out plenty of hits on his own, all this while playing RW for the first time possibly in his career. A very good gut check game for Eric. His goal was a laser beam from just inside the blueline. |
| Petr Nedved | 19:54 | C | These guys didn't have it tonight. Nedved played hard and did good work defensively, but they just had no flow. Nedved had a great chance late on a 2-on-1 but shot it just 3 inches too low. |
| Ronald Petrovicky | 14:41 | C | Hmm. Everyone's Favorite Petrovicky didn't have such a hot night tonight. In a game that featured more hitting than any 3 average games combined, Petro wasn't really noticable. The whole line was flat. |
| Pavel Bure | 17:06 | C | Nothing. Absolutely nothing until the 3rd period. Backchecked well, but that's what Rem Murray is for. Like I said turned it up in the 3rd and had some good chances. Only 2 shots. |
| Mark Messier | 19:41 | C | I was seriously afraid for Messier's health early on. I'm not kidding. In a very fast paced, hard-hitting game, for one of the first times this season, Messier really LOOKED like he's a month away from 42 years old. It's a good thing players have a lot of respect for him (and are also afraid of his butt-ends and elbows), because he could've been killed if not. He blew an AMAZING pass from Lefebvre in the 2nd period, just choked on it. To Messier's credit he picked it up later in the game, and it was not a bad game for him, but at times there were 6' 4", 240lb. 30 year olds flying every which way and Messier seemed a bit overwhelmed. |
| Radek Dvorak | 16:12 | C | He's getting to be like Rico Fata. The desire is there and Radek played one of his harder games in a while tonight, but nothing works for him. Had very little impact on the game. |
| Mikael Samuelsson | 13:50 | C- | Where Dvorak had little impact on the game, Samuelsson had NONE. No shots, no hits, nothing. |
| Ted Donato | 6:01 | B- | Donato did pretty well. Solid plays and threw his little body around more than most other forwards. |
| Rem Murray | 16:59 | C- | Murray had little impact on this game. I'd say it was Samuelsson-like, but at least Murray got off two shots. |
| Sandy McCarthy | 8:22 | C+ | He was okay. A few hits, 1 shot. Not as quiet as Murray or Samuelsson. |
| COACHING STAFF: | C+ | Can't really say they did anything right or wrong. One sticking point is Messier's ice time being higher than Holik's, where Holik was playing a great game and Messier not so. | |
| 1st PERIOD: | C | Not a good showing by the Rangers. The Flyers came out, uh, flying, and hit everything that moved. Rangers returned some of those hits, but definitely not all of them. They were outhit, I'm saying. Rangers PK continued to be better than average with two kills in the period, although the second one was hairy. And the PP continued to be atrocious in their one chance. I'm not even sure if they got a shot off. Flyers owned the period about 75/25 in momentum, and 15-7 on shots. | |
| 2nd PERIOD: | B- | I don't know what to think of that period. It was good, it was bad. The 2nd period started like the 1st period ended - Flyers owning the joint. When they scored the goal and still clearly had the momentum, I thought they were going to blow the Rangers out. Then, quietly, the Rangers FINALLY started checking harder, and I don't mean body checking, just started playing any Flyer with the puck a lot more aggressively, especially on the forecheck. Still, though, the Flyers badly outshot the Rangers again, this time 10-5 to make it 25-12 for the game so far. Not good. | |
| 3rd PERIOD: | B+ | Great period. Rangers owned it like the Flyers owned the 1st, minus the hitting. After being wildly outshot the first two periods the Rangers outshot the Flyers 12-6 in this period. Wished they could've buried some of those chances, though. | |
| OVERALL: | B- | It's not really a (OT) loss to be upset with, as the whole thing came down to a terrible penalty shot call with 36 seconds left. Doesn't mean the Rangers played a very good game, though. They played good from about the midway point on, but they were really being steamrolled at first. And they were also out-muscled almost the entire game, and that shouldn't happen with this roster. Some players showed up hard, most notably Holik and Lindros, and some didn't. Really, the times the Rangers took over the game was when Philly wasn't playing as hard, which is a bad sign. Still, to be domiated like they were early on and then to steal the late momentum and come out with a point is... you know... it's okay. | |
| 2002-2003 record: | 29 GP | 12-12-4-1 | 29 PTS | 78 GF | 92 GA | ||
| 2001-2002 record: | 29 GP | 17-9-2-1 | 37 PTS | 84 GF | 75 GA | ||
| Scratches: | Joel Bouchard (healthy)
Rico Fata (healthy) Brian Leetch (foot) Mike Richter (concussion) |
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| created by: | Pete Rocha, © 2002. procha@optonline.net | ||
| Discuss the card here |
eMail this entry!
That penalty shot call was BRUTAL. Poor Danny Boy WAS sort of like a "Deer in Headlights".
I think you're right--Danny Boy needs some time off to tighten up his technique a bit, and to work on Breakaways from the BEST in the BUSINESS--Mike Richter!
The schedule will hopefully lighten up soon to give our Boys a much needed break.
Go Rangers!
Posted by: Terry on December 6, 2002 01:51 AMIn Wednesday's chat on ESPN.com, Blackburn said the team doesn't practice breakaways. Considering any open skater bearing down on Blackburn has like a 99.9% chance of scoring, hmmm... ya think maybe they SHOULD start practicing them?! You can't teach reflexes, but they can teach Blackbrun to be aware of the moves he might face. He's very easily deked.
Posted by: Rocha on December 6, 2002 12:23 PMI was at the game last night, and I can honestly say that I didn't even see the penalty shot. I got up and walked out right after that brutal call. The refs let so much garbage go on all night and they make a PS call with 30 seconds to go in an OT game? Just ridiculous.
I have to make a few observations.
DK has no idea what positional defense is. He's totally to blame for Wretchi's goal. If he's not going to play defense or hit people, he's essentially useless.
I'm beginning to believe that Poti's strong play this year has less to do with Tom Poti and more to do with Brian Leetch. It was brutally eveident that the Rangers missed Leetch more than anyone (with the possible exception of Richter).
Danny Boy is going to be a very good goaltender some day. He played better last night than he has the past few games, making some solid saves. But he's so shaky sometimes, and playes way too deep in his net. He keeps getting burned up high way too often.
Holik and Lindy together looks great. Holik was a bull out there. What a difference he makes. If he can stay healthy, he makes this team 20% better, and 100% harder to play against.
Finally, a big A-hole salute to the bimbo's wearing Rangers sweaters and sitting in the club box at the FU Center last night. What in gods's name are you thinking?! Sreaming "Let's go Rangers" at the top of your lungs at the FU Center? If you're going to do that crap, come down to the cheap seats and take the brunt of the abuse that you so richly deserve for it. Instead, you make life more difficult for the few of us that have the balls to wear a Rangers sweater to the FU, but the brains enough to keep our damn mouths shut when your on hostile grounds. Have some common sense and some damn respect, and quit endangering our lives!
Posted by: Roman on December 6, 2002 01:36 PM
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