Post-Game Talk: New York Rangers at San Jose Sharks - January 25/26

[Ail]

Fell asleep during the third, and missed the exciting finish. Furious. Just ruptured an artery from being so enraged.

 

[NYR Viper]

I watched the first period and then threw in the towel. How did ADA look? He looked pretty good in the 1st.

 

[Kovalev27]

I’m amazed dell has been so good. Nothing about him impressed me at all. Small guy doesn’t move all that well laterally especially to his blocker side where it’s a clear weakness. We spanked him.

Pavelec was disgusting though. Just awful goaltending

 

[Holocene]

I fell asleep after the first. Pretty surprised by the outcome! I wouldn't mind them losing every single game in Feb leading up to the deadline. I want there to be no illusions about this team, no uncertainty. Make the smart trades for assets. If we go on a tear after the deadline then so be it. I've just watched too many playoff games coached by AV to believe that this team could be anything special in the playoffs. We'll go as far as Hank can drag us with help from guys like Kreider and Zucc, usually.

 

[Fitzy]

McDonagh now has a higher PPG than Shattenkirk this season.

Shattenkirk is behind Skjei and just ahead of Holden in even strength point.

Hail the different between a 'puck moving' defenseman, and a PPQB. Shattenkirk is the latter.

Final note- I think Zuccarello is really feeling in a slump right now. He's leading the team in points by a wide margin, but he's also just a step off the eye test of what we usually see from him.

 

[Irishguy42]

McDonagh now has a higher PPG than Shattenkirk this season.

Shattenkirk is behind Skjei and just ahead of Holden in even strength point.

Hail the different between a 'puck moving' defenseman, and a PPQB. Shattenkirk is the latter.

Final note- I think Zuccarello is really feeling in a slump right now. He's leading the team in points by a wide margin, but he's also just a step off the eye test of what we usually see from him.

Wide margin? Only 5 points...

 

[Captain Lindy]

With AV it’ll be
Mcdonagh -Smith
Staal-skjei
Deangelo Shattenkirk

Karlsson in minors

 

[Fitzy]

Wide margin? Only 5 points...

Relatively. He led the team in scoring by only 3 points at the end of the last 2 seasons. He's on pace to lead this year by 8 or 9.

 

[Inferno]

Who gets more e.s. mins? Who was playing on 1 leg?

McD is the better defenseman...but to bring up shatty is dumb...before the shots wore off he was a ppg player

 

[ReggieDunlop68]

With AV it’ll be
Mcdonagh -Smith
Staal-skjei
Deangelo Shattenkirk

Karlsson in minors

The Russian bias?

 

[will1066]

It was evident last night that Hayes is a key cog that carries this team. Love his progression. I never subscribed to belief that Hayes and Miller should not play together. They were very good together.

 

[Kaapo Cabana]

McD has zero goals in over 50 games then scores on 2 consecutive shots. Can’t make this crap up

Its more common than you think. Its amazing the kind of psychological blocks a player can have when their confidence is low. When the first puck went in I'm sure McD breathed a huge sigh of relief. If he doesn't score that first goal, maybe he is more apprehensive about making the shot for the second goal and hesitates too much, only to miss his opportunity.

Riley Sheahan scored his only 2 goals last year on the last game of the season (and he played 80 games).

 

[Inferno]

Its more common than you think. Its amazing the kind of psychological blocks a player can have when their confidence is low. When the first puck went in I'm sure McD breathed a huge sigh of relief. If he doesn't score that first goal, maybe he is more apprehensive about making the shot for the second goal and hesitates too much, only to miss his opportunity.

Riley Sheahan scored his only 2 goals last year on the last game of the season (and he played 80 games).

I sure hope so.... I haven't scored a goal in beer league for like 3 months ....averaging an assist a game..but nothing in goals....I sympathize with McD.

 

[Amazing Kreiderman]

The awful defensive play had LOTS to do with it.

No, the defense is only to blame when Lundqvist is in net.

 

[HatTrick Swayze]

Nice bounce back from JT

 

[RangerBoy]

Pavelec had an .821 save % and Dell had a .798 save %. That’s all you need to know.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

I liked yesterday's stacked lines. Lets not pretend we are a good team with 4 quality lines. We have 7 good offensive forwards. The top 6 from yesterday and Grabner. Grabner doesn't really need to play with skilled players either, considering his game is all speed.

Until Kreider returns or Chytil and Andersson are called up, continue stacking the top 6. They should be getting no less than around 36-38 minutes of the ice time at their positions, as well.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

He's been okay earlier in the season. I looked at his SV% last night after the match, and I think its usually a good stat to judge goalies. Now its at .907. Thats not bad for a back up, although its not good. Earlier in the season, he was doing really well. Now, I think we can say we aren't getting better than average goaltending from our back-up, but this team has way bigger concerns than getting better than average play from the back up.

 

[Levitate]

I liked yesterday's stacked lines. Lets not pretend we are a good team with 4 quality lines. We have 7 good offensive forwards. The top 6 from yesterday and Grabner. Grabner doesn't really need to play with skilled players either, considering his game is all speed.

Until Kreider returns or Chytil and Andersson are called up, continue stacking the top 6. They should be getting no less than around 36-38 minutes of the ice time at their positions, as well.

just wait until McLeod gets into the lineup in a top six capacity!

 

[lilphildub]

Missed the 3rd. Was awesome to see Hayes come back and play as well as he did. Also great to see Miller and Zuke bringing their A games tonight. McDonagh scored FINALLY! Hopefully gets his offense going. Gotta mention Grabner is so much fun to watch. What a great pass to Fast last night and was pestering the Sharks D the whole game. Even though I love watching Grabner I won't be surprised if he's traded soon. If not they better resign him or it'll be a failure on Gorton's part

 

[romba]

I hate hearing how the Rangers are so inconsistent. Show me a team with close to a .500 record and you'll find an inconsistent team. No one plays 'average' every game and wins some and loses some leading to their .500 record. Some games are played well, some really well, some poorly, some very poorly, and some average. Depending on the breakdown you'll have a slightly better or worse record. But it's a spectrum in which the Rangers, like many other middle of the road NHL teams, are highly inconsistent game to game and period to period.

It's actually good for the league this way because nearly all fans see the glimmers of excellent play at different points in the season and hold onto that dreaming 'why not us? A little consistency and were RIGHT there! Pens were .500 too last year and they won so we can too!'. Unfortunately most teams can't match the Pens' elite level talent at numerous positions but the lack of consistency across the board can make for a better trade deadline though.

 

[Samuel Culper III]

I hate hearing how the Rangers are so inconsistent. Show me a team with close to a .500 record and you'll find an inconsistent team. No one plays 'average' every game and wins some and loses some leading to their .500 record. Some games are played well, some really well, some poorly, some very poorly, and some average. Depending on the breakdown you'll have a slightly better or worse record. But it's a spectrum in which the Rangers, like many other middle of the road NHL teams, are highly inconsistent game to game and period to period.

It's actually good for the league this way because nearly all fans see the glimmers of excellent play at different points in the season and hold onto that dreaming 'why not us? A little consistency and were RIGHT there! Pens were .500 too last year and they won so we can too!'. Unfortunately most teams can't match the Pens' elite level talent at numerous positions but the lack of consistency across the board can make for a better trade deadline though.

The Rangers aren’t inconsistent. They’re consistently bad with good goaltending.

Yes, that’s an over simplification and I don’t actually believe that we’re “consistently bad”. But using it as a starting point, the Rangers are a B- team with A goaltending. Sometimes they get A+ goaltending. Sometimes they bring a B or B+ hockey game. Obviously, different players individually have better games than others each day, some more consistently than others. We’re just talking about overall here. More often than bringing B+ hockey to the rink, the Rangers play B- or even C+/C hockey. A lot of this has to do with the defensive zone coverage and can likely to be attributed to the coach. They could probably be a B-/B team more often with a better defensive scheme.

That said, when they frequently play B-/C+ hockey, if the goaltending is A/A+ they manage wins. If the goaltending faulters when the hockey is in that range, everything goes to hell. Luckily, the goaltending is much more consistent than the rest of the team’s play. Sure, we see occasional B goaltending but those games are much fewer and far between than the games where the Rangers as a team brings C level hockey, and what’s worse the team brings A level hockey even more rarely.

If we didn’t have consistent A level goaltending to boost our typically B- hockey to a B+ level, we’d wouldn’t be the middle of the road, .500 hockey team that you’re describing. I’m not saying we’d be one of the absolute bottom feeders like Arizona or Buffalo. But we would be less of a wild card and more of a “hope the lottery balls drop favorably”... which is basically what we are this season even WITH top goaltending, largely due to the team under performing to even their own standards and a dearth of injuries.

 

[Inferno]

The Rangers aren’t inconsistent. They’re consistently bad with good goaltending.

Yes, that’s an over simplification and I don’t actually believe that we’re “consistently bad”. But using it as a starting point, the Rangers are a B- team with A goaltending. Sometimes they get A+ goaltending. Sometimes they bring a B or B+ hockey game. Obviously, different players individually have better games than others each day, some more consistently than others. We’re just talking about overall here. More often than bringing B+ hockey to the rink, the Rangers play B- or even C+/C hockey. A lot of this has to do with the defensive zone coverage and can likely to be attributed to the coach. They could probably be a B-/B team more often with a better defensive scheme.

That said, when they frequently play B-/C+ hockey, if the goaltending is A/A+ they manage wins. If the goaltending faulters when the hockey is in that range, everything goes to hell. Luckily, the goaltending is much more consistent than the rest of the team’s play. Sure, we see occasional B goaltending but those games are much fewer and far between than the games where the Rangers as a team brings C level hockey, and what’s worse the team brings A level hockey even more rarely.

If we didn’t have consistent A level goaltending to boost our typically B- hockey to a B+ level, we’d wouldn’t be the middle of the road, .500 hockey team that you’re describing. I’m not saying we’d be one of the absolute bottom feeders like Arizona or Buffalo. But we would be less of a wild card and more of a “hope the lottery balls drop favorably”... which is basically what we are this season even WITH top goaltending, largely due to the team under performing to even their own standards and a dearth of injuries.

What he said.

Without Henrik being a God most of this season the rangers are a bottom 5 team in the nhl pretty easily.

 

[NYR Viper]

Pavelec had an .821 save % and Dell had a .798 save %. That’s all you need to know.

Prepare to see Hank ridden into the ground for the rest of the season

 

[Nopuckluck]

I just rewatched the game. McD scored but was weak in front of his net especially on the fifth goal just watch him. Skjei is a train wreck defensively. Every time I saw Zibenejad he was either getting knocked on his ass or losing a board battle. Kid is soooooooooooo soft