The Olympic break couldn’t come at a worse time for the Blue Shirts now that this team is at full throttle. This reminds me of the last Olympic hiatus four years ago when the Rangers were playing very well before the hiatus, came back, stumbled into the playoffs, and finally bowed out in four games against the New Jersey Devils. That season, the Rangers had a ton of players who were going to play in the Olympics and that could have caused fatigue over the stretch of the regular season and the four additional postseason games they played.
The strong finish to this year would start after trailing 2-0 going into the second period and it looked like a huge disappointment was in store for us. Rangers would come back with five unanswered goals, sparked by some great saves from Henrik Lundqvist and a beautiful Sean Avery penalty kick to put the team on the board while the rest of the team would follow suit and step up as well.
Erik Christensen would score two big goals, Prospal is still scoring and added an assist in his two-point game. And finally, Captain Chris Dury would end the Lightning with an empty net goal, a mile point for Chris, his 600th career point total!
The Rangers did this without their number one scorer and one of their best defensemen. Both still out with laceration injuries, Gaborik and Del Zotto won’t mind the rest as it will give them more time to heal their injuries. Although Gaborik will be heading to the Olympic tournament, his injury still figures on a day-to-day basis.
This Rangers team is starting to stand out, and it seems to me that it started in the third quarter against the Phoenix Coyotes. In that game they were down three times and came back for two goals in the third and came very close to tying the game. The next night they won a big game in Colorado. Since those games, the Rangers have not lost a game by more than one goal and head to the Olympic break 3-1 in their last four. Defeat the three teams ahead of them in the standings, including the Devils and Penguins.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m really looking forward to the Olympics this year, but it’s a very difficult time to send key players to a big tournament when their regular teams are fighting for their lives to get into season two. The guys who are not going to play in the tournament now have to sit idle and stop playing.
Great final for the Blue Shirts, but we will have to wait until March 2 to see them play again. With the win, the Rangers tie the Lightning for ninth place and have a game to go over the eighth-place Canadians, whom they trail only one point. I hope the offseason doesn’t slow this team down when play resumes in March, with just 20 more games to go, they’ll have to stay as strong and consistent as they’ve been of late to make it to Season Two.
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