Two power play assists for this man. Why wasn’t he on the PP all season? (Photo: Robert Kowal/flickr)

Throughout the lockout, many blogs are doing fake recaps of the games that should’ve been taking place. I’ve decided to go another route by doing real recaps…of the games that happened on that date one year ago.

The recap for the Rangers game on October 24th, 2011 versus the Winnipeg Jets started with this sentence:

The New York Rangers found themselves in a familiar position Monday night and ultimately relied on an assortment of unfamiliar weapons to head home happy.

Without looking up the rest of the recap, how do you think the game went?

If you guessed the Rangers were outshot but managed to win on great goaltending and special teams, you would be right.

Now give yourself extra points if you remembered that Marty Biron was in net and all the Rangers goals were scored on the power play. I kid you not.

After the disaster that was the game in Edmonton, the Rangers definitely needed a spark early in the game. Enter Brandon Prust:

Alright. The thought was there and he didn’t get his butt kicked so I guess it served it’s purpose.

The rest of the first period was quiet. Really quiet. There were a couple of penalties and 11 shots on net. Total. How many did the Rangers have? Three. Anyone else think the boys were tired and just ready to go home?

Early in the second period, the Rangers got a power play and went to work. A minute into it, Dan Girardi took a shot from the point which Ruslan Fedotenko deflected into the net. It was the teams’ second power play goal of the season in 26 tries.

Of course a little less than ten minutes later, the Jets tied it on a goal by ex-Ranger Nik Antropov and we ended the second tied at 1. The good news? The Rangers more than doubled their shot total from the first period as both teams managed seven shots a piece. The bad news? Well the team only had 10 shots in 40 minutes.

But it only takes one to get a goal and while the Rangers got another seven in the third period, it was one that wasn’t actually a shot on net that went in.

You know those fluke goals that you love when your teams scores but hate when they are scored against you? The game winner in this one was one of those goals as Ryan Callahan scored the teams’ third power play goal of the season on this “shot”:

Love when the team gets a bounce like that. (Scream words I can’t write on here when it goes against them )

I couldn’t find a video of the goal so that is a recap video. Fedotenko’s goal is at the 0:40 mark. Callahan’s goal is at 3:40. If you watch the whole video, you will notice the Rangers were hemmed in their zone pretty good right before Callahan scored. Sometimes you just get the bounces and a year ago, the boys did.

As Girardi said after the game:

“Let’s put it out this way — we won three out of four [games],” Girardi said. “We all know to a man that we have to be more consistent and play a full 60 minutes.”

And with that the boys finally headed home. Next up, a date with the Maple Leafs in the newly renovated MSG.