CrashingTheGoalie

By Bill Heintz

Well, let’s not lose control of our emotions here: but the truth is that was one gutsy effort.

Sure Bieksa and O’Brien sometimes have IQ levels that seem compromised. And yes, their selfish play almost cost us. But the real character guys; the Keslers, the Sedins, the Samuelsons and the Raycrofts…those are the guys that won the game tonight.

Typical effort from a Tortorella coached team…but thuggery will never replace heart. And I said in the pre-game that the Rangers have elite goaltending and I will stand by that…but we ventilated the Rangers last year as well. Nice that we have someone’s number for a change.

And before we sign off here:  it’s a firm grasp of the obvious to say that Raycroft earned this win. We may have outshot the Rangers tonight, but they clearly had the better scoring chances.

courtesy of mirtle.blogspot.com

Razor was there for each one.

We’ve never had a better back-up.

Just like we’ve never had a better PP specialist than Schneider (yeah, yeah Paul Reinhart…but that just seemed like a cup of coffee) and finally a true leader in Ryan Kesler. Haven’t seen a guy put a team on his back since Trevor did it with such consistency in the nineties.

The only thing to worry about now is, what happens when we ice a healthy team?

*****

"You kow after I wrote a quick update on the blog (I did a two-parter...pre game/post game) I realized I should have talked about Ehrhoff as well. His work on the PP and at even strength has been outstanding. He is clearly our best D and a real steal from San Jose. Schneider is simply a PP specialist and gets really limited minutes otherwise. I think Ehrhoff replaces Salo as our best D."