Before everyone loses their cool and begins to call the Rangers out for not being able to defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins, let’s realize two things; with a healthy Henrik Lundqvist, this game is much closer than 5-2. The Rangers’ effort was not half bad tonight, and they even outshot the Pens by a large margin in the third period. Secondly, the Rangers have already clinched the first place spot in the Eastern Conference, therefore this loss has no impact on their place in the standings going into the playoffs. Just keep this all in mind before ripping the club to shreds.
The Rangers didn’t get off to a preferable start, allowing a goal just 1:11 into the first period to go down 1-0. The original shot came from Kris Letang at the point, which was deflected past Marty Biron by Chris Kunitz at the side of the net. That one is on the defense for not clearing out the area around the crease.
New York responded within four minutes later, as Brandon Dubinsky buried a Ruslan Fedotenko rebound on the rush to tie the game at one. Fedotenko’s strong move to the net was impressive, but on this play we saw the sometimes-unreliable defense of the Penguins that I briefly discussed in the pregame. Also, Dubinsky was left unattended to in the slot despite three Pens all being within the vicinity.
Tyler Kennedy would regain the lead for the Pens before the end of the opening period, however, on what was a weak goal allowed by Biron. Kennedy followed up on a rebound from a sharp-angle just beyond the faceoff circle, yet the shot somehow went top-shelf. That’s an angle Biron needs to have covered, but he failed to hug the post and got caught.
That certainly wasn’t Biron’s only gaffe of the game, either. At 5:11 of the second stanza, Richard Park gave the Penguins a 3-1 lead by banking a shot in off Biron from behind the net. Marty, for some unknown reason, was literally spinning in his crease and ended up losing his stick on the play as well. It was just an ugly occurrence all together.
It remained 3-1 for quite a while, but Evgeny Malkin would score his 49th of the season off a beautiful pass from Chris Kunitz in the third period to extend the spread to three. As I said, Kunitz did make a perfect pass, but Ryan McDonagh (surprisingly) lost his man in Malkin on the rush, so Geno was all by himself waiting for the feed at the top of the crease.
Brian Boyle would get one back for the Rangers on the powerplay later in the third, which would be his fifth goal in eight games. It didn’t have much relevance in the current game, however, as Kris Letang would follow up by sinking the empty-netter to put a bow on the Pens’ 5-2 victory.
Based on all of this, you would think that the Penguins dominated play if you didn’t watch the game in its entirety. In my opinion, that wasn’t the case, especially considering how poorly Biron played and that the Rangers finished the game with more shots on goal. The effort and battle, for the most part, were there. They just lacked in the execution department.
This all means little compared to what occurred late in the game between Brooks Orpik and Derek Stepan, though. When the score was 4-1, Orpik was ejected from the game after sticking out his knee to take out Derek Stepan cutting across the Pen’s blue-line. The replay clearly shows that there was intent to injure on Oprik’s part, and based on what we saw of Stepan hobbling around, he just may have succeeded.
There’s no doubt that Orpik should receive a suspension for this play, but if the League doesn’t acknowledge it (which wouldn’t surprise me), Rangers head coach John Tortorella most definitely did.
Here’s what Torts had to say about the Orpik knee-on-knee with Stepan after the game, courtesy of Andrew Gross:
“Absolutely, it’s a cheap, dirty hit,” Tortorella said. “I wonder what would happen if we did it to their two whining stars over there, I wonder what would happen? So I’m anxious to see what happens with the league with this. Just no respect among players, none. It’s sickening.”
“It’s one of the most arrogant organizations in the league. They whine about this stuff all the times and look what happens. It’s ridiculous, but they’ll whine about something else over there, won’t they? Starting with their two f****** stars.”
See this is why I have such a great appreciation for Tortorella. He says everything that the rest of the NHL is afraid to say. Go ahead Mr. Bettman, apply a fine. The comments made by John tonight were 100-percent correct from start to finish and are well worth any dollar amount you assign to them.
On that note, I’ll call it a night on here. No need to further discuss.
Comments