A Rangers fan came over the other day. And I'm like heck why not do the same
He or she or any other gender
asked 2 questions
1. Who are the Rangers biggest rivals?
2. In the playoffs who do you think are the Rangers biggest threat(s) in the post season?
I'm gunna ask a third
3. Obviously Hayes grabner and vesey are shooting at extremely high percentages like Crosby. When this happens how do the Rangers continue winning? I havnt looked it's quite possible the top 6 begins scoring because they aren't or the 4th line hasn't chipped in a few goals. Lastly maybe the defense does.
Thanks for the answers in advance
Seeing I was the "Ranger fan" who came over to your board and posed the two questions to you might has well toss in my .02 cents....
1. Regular season wise and from a division perspective for me and I think most of my Ranger brothers will agree in order when it comes to who do we love beating more it's Islanders, Devils, Capitals, Penguins,Flyers, Columbus and Carolina
2. As far as threats for me IMO in the conference, #1, it's easily the Penguins seeing you guys play pretty much the same style as we do(thx Sullivan for taking it from AVE to Pittsburgh...lol) but you guys have a couple of superstars that we don't have. You know guys like Crosby,Malkin, Letang. #2 is the Lightning sieeing tho we don't play them alot, they are damn good and we seem to have issues with them tho we blew them out last time we played them. 3rd would be the Caps seeing they are very talented and tho we seem to have their # when we play them in playoffs, they are still very dangerous. I guess I'd put the Habs 4th on the "threat chart" seeing they have Price. But they don't scare me all too much possibly due to the cap gun type offense. The others like the Bruins,Devils, Ottawa are all way down the list. And yes surprisingly I haven't mentioned the Islanders but this year the losses of both Okposo and Nielson have changed their team for the worse. They aren't as much of a threat as they were last year despite them being one of our biggest rivals.
3. I think I can speak for most of us here in Rangerland. None of us ever ever thought BEFORE the season that the moves Gorton made were going to help us become one of the elite teams in the league at this point. Most of us including myself thought the Stanley Cup window we had was starting to close after last year's 1st round exit to your Pens. And that's understandable. We really didn't have alot of big FA pickups and tho we were hoping that a Buchnevich would make the roster, other than him and maybe Skeji who looked impressive, there was nothing other than the late signing of Vesey for free that was looked at as all to exciting. None of us thought signig Grabner Pirri would be all too impactful and so us making the playoffs would probably occur but it was no sure thing. But a funny thing has happened. Kevin Hayes came into this year in great shape and is a totally d ifferent player. JT Miller has taken the next step and has great chemistry with Hayes. Grabner has bee a relevation. Vesey, Buchevich, Skeji have been terrific. The addition of Zibanajeg in place of Brassard has worked out. Kreider has taken the next step up in his devopment. And maybe the most important thing of all is Rick Nash is back to being the 42 goal Rick Nash of two years ago. Oh and the goaltending has been outstanding with the King being the King. So all in all we are quite happy here in Rangerland. Do we think this crazy shooting % we have going on or that Michael Grabner has morphed into MiKe Bossy is going to continue? Of course not. That said, we have some serious pieces here and we I am supremly confident are not a fluke.
Next weeks back to back games vs your Pens will be a very good test for our team. I think we will pass the test from what I've seen....
Welcome to our board by the way. Like you guys welcomed me, we here in Rangerland, so long as you are respectful and not trolling welcome other fanbases to hang with us and ask whatever questions you might have....cheers.
