I'm Calling April Hockey

There’s usually a turning point or two in a season, when fans, players and management alike look back and think, “if only that would have went differently,” or “thank the hockey gods for that one.” This singular moment, just one game, can define an entire hockey season. Sometimes it’s easy to point out which moments have the potential to be this crucial, although it’s impossible to know for sure until the season begins to come to a close. 

Duballahan: In Love

The 7-0 win from last night against the Washington Capitals had all the makings of such a critical game.

The Rangers were coming off a couple of weeks of undisciplined play, and despite a slightly more energetic game against Columbus Blue Jackets, the Rangers found themselves as the losers. Henrik Lundqvist managed to let in a goal by Rick Nash at an impossible angle. It was overwhelmingly disappointing for Lundqvist, not to mention fans.

Lundqvist had 31 saves.

John Tortorella, usually hard on his goaltenders, made the intelligent decision to play Lundqvist right away off the bat. Lundqvist had a great defense in front of him, but he came up big when he had to.

John Giannone, who called the game, had a bit of a tongue mix-up and ended up referring to Lundqvist as “their” - as in, the Ranger’s- Lundqvist. Although it was a funny slip at the time, Lundqvist certainly proved why we’re proud that he is theirs, and ours, too! It was a well-earned shutout (number 5 on the season) and big game from our franchise goaltender.

In Prust We Trust!

The Rangers dominated throughout the game, from the very first face off. Brandon Prust opened up the goal scoring gates late in the first period  on a lucky deflection off of Tom Poti’s stick. Not for nothing, but that should have been the first time that this game was about to get awesome. When the Capitals hit their second post of the second period, you could feel it in the air; everything was on our side, even luck for once. When the Capitals hit their third post of the period, I exchanged a cinematic, jaw-dropping stare down with a fellow Rangers fan, who was equally in shock that the bounces were going our way.

OMGOMGOMG /fangirl

Brandon. Freakin’. Dubinsky.  This game featured Brandon’s second career Gordie Howe Hat Trick, with Dubinsky notching a pretty assist on his good buddy Ryan Callahan’s first goal- out of two- in the third period, his own goal, and a fight with Alexander Ovechkin.

That’s right. A fight with Alexander Ovechkin.

DUUUUUUUUUUUUB

(I’m still waiting for the instigator to be called on AO, though. Dubinsky was jumped. If this were Sidney Crosby, all of the Ovechkin-lovers with Crosby-superiority-complexes would be calling for his head, no doubt. This is exactly the double standard that makes me abhor Ovechkin just a fraction more than that whiny annoyance from Pittsburgh.)

Lost in all the shuffle, because Dubinsky fought (!!) Ovechkin, was the beauty that was his goal. A no-looker? Oh HELL yes. Also lost was that considering the way the two players have been playing, Dubinsky was almost as bad for the Rangers to lose when sitting for his major penalty as Ovechkin was for the Capitals.

Yeah, it's love.

Other goal scorers included Artem Anisimov, who is slowly coming out of his slump, and Marian Gaborik, who I would like to see score against an actually decent team and/or in a competitive game.

On the defensive side, Marc Staal earned his money tonight. After a shaky start to the season, Staal has been increasingly steady, and managed a sweet shorthanded goal last night. Have I mentioned that I love Michael Sauer? He’s a tough cookie who’s looking confident, plus he scored his first NHL goal against the Senators the other night. Our other Michael, Del Zotto, has looked better post-paper. I would pay good money to read that four page report.

Although I know that Semyon Varlamov did not look sharp- does he ever?-, Ovechkin was a non-factor, and the Capitals’ defense was all types of atrocious last night, I am officially saving my pennies for a hockey game on a rainy April day.

Let’s continue this into Wednesday’s game against the Pittsburgh Penguins, and Thursday’s against the Phoenix Coyotes.

If you haven’t heard the news, Petr Prucha was waived on Thanksgiving and is now a member of the San Antonio Rampage, so we won't be seeing him on Thursday. Ow. It hurts.