Rangers Sweep in Prague

The New York Rangers and Tampa Bay Lightning finished off their two-game series in Prague today. Le Grand Orange frightened us once again with the Anthem. She would be good at interrogating criminals. After she finished singing, I was ready to confess to anything. The second game was much like the first. The Rangers dominated the puck (at least in the first two periods) and out-shot the Lightning, 39 to 19 (and 80 to 40 for the two games). And the score was the same also, with the Blueshirts once again winning 2-1.

The Rangers controlled the play in the first period but couldn’t get on the board. Tampa Bay had a measly three shots on goal, but Adam Hall managed to slip one by Henrik Lundqvist to take a 1-0 lead. The King thought he stopped the puck, but it trickled past him into the net. The period also saw the first fight of the year with Aaron Voros taking on Ryan Malone. It was short but sweet. And Brandon Dubinsky was whistled for a roughing penalty sticking up for Lundqvist after the goalie was barrelled over in a collision. You don’t mind seeing that type of penalty.

Tom Renney rolled out the same lineup as the one on Saturday. And in the second period, they were as dominating as can be. The Lightning didn’t even get a shot off until the halfway mark of the period. On the second power play of the game for New York, Wade Redden recorded his first Ranger goal after some beautiful tic-tac-toe passing from Markus Naslund and Scott Gomez. The Rangers were in Tampa Bay’s zone the whole power play, blasting shot after shot, with plenty of traffic in front of the net. They ended up one for four on the power play, and two for 11 in the series. Gomez netted the eventual game-winner (with assists from Redden and Voros) when the Blueshirts swarmed and attacked the Lightning. They put relentless pressure on Tampa Bay all period long. After the game, Lightning coach Barry Melrose (back on the bench after 70 or so years; the last time he coached, the Montreal Maroons defeated the New York Americans for the Stanley Cup) said he was embarrassed for his team with what the Rangers did to them in that period.

New York was five for five killing penalties (after going four for four in Saturday’s game). Newly appointed captain Chris Drury and Gomez even provided some short-handed scoring opportunities in both games. Lundqvist had another King Henrik game, after looking very rusty in the preseason. The team only scored two power play goals in the two games, but they look better than last season. They’re shooting the puck more and creating screens in front of the goalie.

The team is driving to the net, controlling the puck, piling up shots, pressuring the opposition and skating hard. Their Achilles heel, though, was face-offs. They lost that battle by a count of 29 to 17. And, once again, could only tally two goals with all those shots. Will this be an ongoing problem? Or will the goals come? We’ll find out. They came out of Prague with four points, though. You can’t ask for more than that.