New York Rangers 2011-2012 Post-Mortem
Losing in the Eastern Conference Finals in Game 6 in Overtime to a hated rival is a particularly brutal way to be knocked out of the postseason. However, after time has passed and I take a more sober view, it’s difficult to not look at the 2011-12 season as a successful one. To be perfectly objective, the Devils were the better team over the majority of the 6 games and, without some breaks and some superb goaltending by Henrik Lundqvist (who was excellent all postseason aside from one period in Game 5 - a period with multiple defensive breakdowns), the Devils could easily have won the series in 4 or 5 games.
It should also bear noting that the Rangers are still a relatively young team, and should have even more young talent on the NHL roster next season with Chris Kreider, who showed flashed of immense ability in the postseason, making his regular season debut and others like Tim Erixon likely to contribute. The team’s grind-it-out style of play won it many points in the regular season but it struggled to decisively put away series in the postseason, against teams playing similarly in series that became wars of attrition. It eventually caught up to them, but a deep playoff run should provide valuable experience and allow the Rangers to make necessary adjustments, both on and off the ice, in the coming months and years.
That’s the cautious optimist’s take on a tough playoff defeat. The future is bright, see you next season.
(On a personal note, it was always going to be a lot to ask for the Rangers to pull off one more championship-winning rally, after Sergio Aguero and Mario Manningham happened in the same year. You can blame me, if you’d like.)
Our goalie is probably better than your goalie. And looks pretty sharp in a fedora.
There’s a lot I missed writing about in my absence. Lots of Mets baseball, City news (Tevez can fly back to Argentina and never come back for all I care), and a couple of nice Giants wins, but today I wanted to talk about the news that the Rangers waived Sean Avery.
He was never quite the same kind of effective pest the second time around with the club, likely due to a combination of the NHL’s glare, John Tortorella and his own diminishing skills, but we’ll always have the hilarious fued with Marty Brodeur and the playoff goal from 2008. He was always outspoken and a wildly entertaining player at his best but it was clear he was becoming a fringe player on this young Rangers team. Still, he’ll be remembered fondly in this corner.
Mark Messier is 50 today.
The heroes of my childhood/adolescence/early adulthood continue to age. Although I guess Messier always seemed kind of old; he’s had basically the same appearance since the mid-90’s and he played against Gordie Howe. Anyway, happy birthday Mess!
The best front page NHL.com has had in ages. Shame they’ve now jinxed us.
Yup, no shot now. Anyway, I watched the segment, and basically it said “Well, they have Lundqvist, so uh, if they score more goals they’ll be dangerous!”
About those Rangers
The same night everybody in New York decided they were Knicks fans again, the Rangers beat the Penguins 4-1 coming off the heels of a 7-0 whooping of the Capitals. They also now have more points than the Devils and Islanders combined. My attention was on the Knicks for most of the night, and in the flash I had heard the Rangers turned a 1-0 deficit into a 2-1 (and then a 4-1) lead. It looks like it might be a pretty fun winter at the Garden this year.
If you live in New York and watched the Cavs-Heat debacle tonight, you missed a hell of a Rangers-Islanders game. It wasn’t the prettiest 6-5 game in the history of the NHL, but it was fun. Then again, you got to see all sort of shocking revelations about how Cleveland hates LeBron, how the Cavs are not very good without LeBron, and about how LeBron leaving was comparable to moving the Lincoln Memorial to Greece (seriously, and the last part was voiced by Wolf Blitzer). Who am I to say what’s more enjoyable?
Weekend sports checklist:
Rangers: won.
Knicks: won.
Manchester City: won.
I feel like this might not bode well for the Giants chances tonight, a sweep is a rarity when you root for these teams.
VOTE AVES!
Troll the NHL!
Everyone should be behind this, because if it happened Gary Bettman would immediately resign.
For whatever reason I haven’t had a chance to watch as many Rangers games as I would like to so far this season. Luckily, I have a lot more free time now and got to watch tonight’s overtime rollercoaster. It was something special.
