How can you leave us Cally? WE NEED YOU! (Photo: Bridget Samuels/flickr)
Editors Note: Today is Aerys second anniversary and while we have been around less than a year, we do feel the need to acknowledge the site for giving us a chance to do what we love. And I figured the best way to do so was to give a fun and sarcastic post so please do not take any of this seriously.
A little over twelve hours later and I’m still pissed off about that game I made myself watch last night. But rather than blame the Rangers for their completely lackluster effort, I think there is a lot more at fault for the shutout the Rangers suffered.
* Ryan Callahan. Yes, I blame him for getting hurt. I get that he doesn’t like to play against Pittsburgh without his partner in crime, Brandon Dubinsky, but if everyone else had to play the game then so did he. But no, he had to go and get hurt so what happens? The Rangers lose.
* Matt Gilroy. What am I blaming Gilroy for? As sixth defenseman, he played over ten minutes! Doesn’t he realize as sixth defenseman his role is to keep Marty Biron company on the bench? The more he is on the ice, the less our top guys are out there and therefore more chance for the team to lose. I mean Girardi and McDonagh have horrible games when they play under 25 minutes each. Speaking of which…
* Our top four D. They combined for a measly 10 hits, 3 blocks and a minus-3 (Del Zotto was the only one even) in only 21 to 24 minutes of ice time. Pathetic showing from them.
* Too Many Men Penalty. Torts wasn’t kind enough to place blame this time so I’m just going to blame the whole team for taking this stupid penalty at the end of the second period when somehow the score was still 1-0. The game was actually in reach and then they take this stupid penalty which cost them the game. (Side note: Some might actually think this really was a game changer. It didn’t help but I feel confident in saying they would’ve lost whether they took this penalty or not.)
* Power kill. It actually did what we expect it to do and killed time off the clock! How did they expect to score if they kept drawing penalties and losing two minutes of valuable ice time?
* Rangers offense once again making a backup goalie look like a Vezina candidate. Look, Tomas Vokoun isn’t a nobody but is he really the guy you expect to get a shutout? Lets put it this way, he’s owned 31.8% in ESPN leagues and 38% in Yahoo leagues. I’m pretty sure those numbers are only due to people being desperate for goaltending and seeing he pitched a shutout last night.
* The refs. As always, the Rangers played the Penguins so of course the Rangers got no calls. I mean not that they wanted them but it’s pretty difficult to win a hockey game when you are playing against two teams at once.
* The schedule. Yes the Rangers had off the night before and have been home all week but it’s a shortened season so I’m sure the schedule had something to do with the loss.
I could continue but basically the entire team stunk and therefore deserved to lose. I’m glad fans were booing them at the Garden because that is obviously going to help turn the ship around. Granted by then, no one will be watching as I know I can’t take another pathetic showing like the one from last night.
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So for those who made it through that, I hope you had a good laugh. I know it looks bad now but this team is better than they were last night. As Torts said, it was a “dumbfounding” performance by the boys. We all know they can play better so please, I beg you, step back from the ledge. Every team goes through adversity. Let them get theirs out of the way in January rather than April and May.
