If you use 20 years of history and the way the Rangers operate overall right now as a guide...yeah this will be 1-1...LOL. At some point they have to win 2 at home to start a series...why not Monday night.
As a side note, I love Dom Moore in the playoffs. He really steps up his game this time of year. Does so many things well you need to win playoff games.
The way rangers dominated this game this series has the look of a 5 gamer to me. and they will score more as the series goes on. Tampa D is not good. The more games we see bishop the more adjustments we will make and goals we will score
The Rangers held them to 24 shots, and that's with those 3rd period penalties. I really feel good about this series. Much better than I did against the Caps. That could change quickly in game 2, but right now I feel real good about our chances in this series.
The Rangers looked pretty comfortable out there today. I would guess game 2 will tell us long series or short series. Let's hope we take the easier path for once...LOL.
Category TBL NYR Shots 24 30 Power Plays 1/4 0/2 Hits 18 30 Faceoff Wins 30 23 Giveaways 6 8 Takeaways 4 10 Blocked Shots 17 15 Penalty Minutes 4 8
Good stuff there outside of winning a couple of more FO's. Need to keep the penalties down to 2 a game. Bolts with only 18 hits...if that continues we'll be in a good spot.
Great win , so proud of this very special team, was on the run all day today visiting father in law in hospital in NYC then jersey for a confirmation. But I Got to listen then see all points of game I needed to see Thank you rangers
Fell asleep in the third but they played defensive, counter attack hockey which is what I thought they had to in order to win this series.
Obviously I'd be happy with more face off wins, but that's not too bad like it had been in previous games. As for the hits, I'd expect Tampa to come out in game 2 looking to double that number, with a lot of guys flying around looking to hit and getting out of position, which we can hopefully take advantage of. Haven't seen the game yet as I have a family thing I'm doing today, but I'll be home tonight to watch it on the DVR, which hopefully recorded this time lol.
Generally I like to avoid making predictions but in my opinion I see this being another long series. Last round when they lost game 1 I actually liked how they played and thought they got a little unlucky with how it ended. This game has me feeling a little differently. They win, but they got lucky with the winning goal. Either way, a win in a playoffs is just that. Doesn't matter how it goes in, score more than the opposition and move on to the next game. Would be very nice to be up 2-0 heading to TB but, let's be honest....
I have to disagree with you here Grey. I thought we played really well today, and our lack of finishing (what else is new) was the only reason we weren't up a few goals. Sure the actual winning goal itself was a lucky bounce, you see a lot of goals like that in the playoffs, but no way someone could watch this game and say the better team didn't win IMO. Now I do agree I still believe this will be a long series, I said 7 at the start and will stay with that, but we differ on how we view the game today. This game actually made me feel that if we could finally find a way to win games 1 & 2 at home for the first time since 1994, maybe we can win this in less than 7. The Bolts need to play much better than today if they want to win this series, that's the honest truth. I think they have that in them, but if someone says the winning goal itself was lucky, I would say yes but the better team won today AND TB was lucky to be tied at 1, could have been 3-1 at least. So we go into Monday night trying to do something we haven't done in 21 years. Don't know which way it will go, but I do know the Bolts need to play much better to win game 2 AND there is no time like now to break that streak....
Funny article from LeBrun: http://espn.go.com/blog/nhl/post/_/...-defense-isnt-pretty-but-it-gets-the-job-done
