Kreider will be out again. The lines at practice today: JT Miller, Derick Brassard, Mats Zuccarello Rick Nash, Derek Stepan, Jayson Megna Oscar Lindberg, Kevin Hayes, Jesper Fast Tanner Glass, Dominic Moore, Viktor Stalberg Those lines are no where near good enough. Sure Kreider will replace someone in the top 9, but Lindberg has hit a huge wall. Hayes and Kreider need to wake up. And Glass should be in the AHL. Rangers need a top 9 upgrade badly to be legit I think. Last time we played the Caps rolled us. Hopefully we'll play much better this time. Looking forward to watching the game.
Caps are hot and they know it. Question is: Do the Rangers?....... and I am not talking about the players! Management, wake the f'king up!
1-0 caps after one as girardi with a brainless pass in front of the net right to OV for a tap in to the empty net instead of blasting it around the boards.
Andrew Gross @AGrossRecord 2h2 hours ago AV on healthy scratch Dylan McIlrath: "At this time, I think Kevin Klein and Dan Girardi are better defensive defensemen than he is... Yeah right AV. ROTFLMAO. Maybe in fantasyland. Ha ha ha
Oh stop mel. The D has played really well recently, and that period as well. Girardi made a dumb play...it happens. Believe it or not, these guys are not robots. The D is NOT the issue. The O is the issue. I am like a broken record saying it over and over again. In big games and big spots against good balanced teams this O simply does not get it done. Two PP's and 1 shot...not good enough.
Right now, I think AV is mentally retarded as he continues to play Girardi and Glass over McIlrath and anybody down on the Pack.
Any time a coach doesnt put out his best line up, it's an issue. Girardi has a freakin CRACKED KNEECAP. Why on earth is he out there limping around in January while Dylan McIlrath sits in the press box and listens to AV say how he isnt good enough? McIlrath outplayed Girardi this season and it wasnt even close. AV is fooling himself with that comment. There is no reason to be playing a clearly hobbled Girardi over McIlrath. Zero. Do not be surprised to see McIlrath traded. AV just sent out a signal to the whole league saying "hey, I have this dman we can't use. Feel free to come knocking."
McIlrath will not be traded. Boyle is almost a 100 and they have no right handed defenseman in the system. However, with the emergence of Graves potentially being a top pairing guy along with Skjei down the line, don't be surprised if McDonagh goes in a shocking deal to get a young center. Honestly, I think McDonagh is a fine defenseman but I also think he's a bit overrated. If they could trade him for RNH and a 2nd rounder or Drouin and DeAngelo, I'd seriously consider it. I'm starting to become supremely confident in our two young, left defenseman at the AHL level.
McDonagh isn't going anywhere. Yandle will be traded for trash (considering what we gave up for him), Boyle will be gone next year and that's that. I don't see the Rangers making moves to get better as they've stupidly put themselves in a bad position cap wise and with the NTC and that will limit what they can bring back. I wouldn't be shocked if they traded Nash to a contender for young pieces and picks though.
This franchise is what it is. An incompetent ownership, with an incompetent GM and an overpaid bunch of players that care more about their wallets than winning. But regardless of all the pain, we all will love them lol
Another cap goal where girardi falls on his ass giving up a breakaway they score on. AV or gorton needs to put girardi out of his misery. And chuck on the first goal girardi comes around the net on a PK with 10 seconds left on his forehand and instead of blasting it down the ice to end the period he tries a "deft" touch pass in front of his net successfully to OV for the tap in. Time to take off the girardi can do no wrong glasses. He is liability out there and has been since all his giveaways in the SC finals a few years ago.
They went to the finals and then game seven of the ECF the last two years. What were they trying to lose?
THIS TEAM CANNOT SCORE. Holy F...I don't know what you guys are whining about. We are 0-3 on the PP. They are 1-2. We don't score against good balanced teams season after season. The D is not the issue here. The Caps aren't getting chance after chance. We don't finish and score goals against good defensive teams. It is the same sh*t every season. And you guys are in here complaining about a bad play y Girardi...guess what ALL players make mistakes. Welcome to the real world. And McIlrath won't get moved...he is a big part of the future with Boyle done next season.
This team has a TON of work to do to get near the Caps this season. We have a pile of sh*t useless guys upfront. Hayes nothing, Kreider nothing, Stalberg nothing, Etem before he was traded nothing, Lindberg hit the wall at 100 mph nothing, Glass nothing, Moore nothing, Fast very little. On and on. We have sh*t upfront outside of 3 or 4 players. That's reality not this whining about a bad play by a dman as we continue to not score against good defensive teams. We need to add a scoring forward or we will go nowhere IMO. I am not worried about the D and have said it all season. It will improve, and the past 4 or 5 games it has. It is the O. It is always the O.
And why are they 1-2 on the PP Chuck? Because a guy who shouldn't be on the ice right now put a puck directly on Ovechkin's stick a foot in front of the net. You can't just look at the score and say "Hm we're losing 2-0, must be the offense's fault." Hockey is a team sport and you need the best possible team out there to win a game. Girardi is, far and away, the weak link right now and has had a hand in both goals given up. AV is not putting this team in a position to succeed.
We miss the net more than any other team in the NHL. It's a friggin joke. This team would struggle to hit water if they fell out of a boat. Seriously. It's not that they can't "finish" it's that they can't even shoot. I gotta stop watching these games again. Not good for the blood pressure hahaha. Such a disappointment though this year. And the fact that Glass is still in the lineup and AV still hasn't given Dylan a game is ludicrous. I told you this was going to happen chuck. AV for some reason doesn't like Dylan. The defense has looked good, yes, but they looked just as good with Dylan so it's not as if they'd lose anything giving him a game. The issue I have is that AV will put him in after 10 games off and if Dylan has a bad game, which would make sense since he hasn't played in forever, AV uses that as an excuse to continue to not play him, yet when any of his favorites play bad he makes excuse after excuse to keep them in the lineup.
Team that got shutout at home in games 5 and 7 of the ECF last season and we bitch about the D. We lose 3-0 against Florida last week and we bitch about the D. We have zero goals today and are 0-3 on the PP and we bitch about the D. Game in and game out this team is so inconsistent on O. We look decent on paper because we have those games where the 1st line clicks and we score 5 goals. But game in and game out we are up and down. When we improve upfront and add some guys who can score in big spots in the playoffs we will win a cup. Look at two years ago...what did we have...a 3rd line of Zucc/Brass/Pouliot. We had great scoring depth that season and shocker we made the SCF. Last season we won a lot of games, but then our lack of scoring depth killed us in the playoffs as we struggled to score against Pitt and the Caps. Then got shutout at home in games 5 and 7 by TB. This season we have games we explode like I said, but way too many games we simply cannot do sh*t on O against solid defensive teams. Same old story. We are not good enough upfront. We are fine on D IMO.
That's why I'm 100% ok with them trading Nash. This team isn't winning the cup. Trade Nash, get some good young players and picks, and rebuild. The window looks like it has sadly slammed shut on this team and no one saw this coming. We've fallen back into the middle of the pack, and the top of the league has surpassed us. Now we have to play catch up with not one hand tied behind our backs, but BOTH hands tied behind our backs due to the cap situation and the awful NTC that Sather the moron gave out like tic tacs.
