Better hope Grunder doesn't show up. Someone's gonna need to hit a pick 6 to cover drinks for that crew.

other than you Tampa guys, who wants to see the Bolts and Ducks fight for the cup? :p

Rangers in 5 and Blackhawks in 7

United Airlines

Bishop will learn pretty quickly not to try all that cute sh!t with the puck against this team. Rangers should be up 3-0 after that 1st period. :zz:

One down!!!

:tro::tro::tro: LGR!!!

One too many stupid penalties but overall great effort considering the war that was won less than 72 hours ago.

Sweep! Lol

Easy tiger. I'll settle for a multiple goal win somewhere along the line. 15 straight one-goal games now.

Can't wait to fill my gullet with beer from dan

It's a long dance, bro. I'd be hardly inspired by that effort, and more aptly crapping my pants if I were a NYR fan. Game 1? Home crowd? You actually make a statement in game 2 then I'm barely concerned.

That was the same sh1t show they squeaked by the Caps with. Now it's Showtime. That weak sauce won't stand up over the long haul.

Oh, my gullet has a more discerning pallet. ;) {{Grey Goose}} :p

LOL you're just trolling now bud.

Oof, disastrous 3rd period. Johnson is gonna be a superstar with a super punchable face. Nice of Marty to hand his old homies a 3-on-5 goal early on too.

I trust the Rangers to win at least one in Tampa. But if they don't I'm blaming knicks for the uberjinx.

Again, My only concern was if somehow the Rangers could back up a lucky bounce win with an assertive effort in game 2. What we got was the same 'ole 2014-2015 NYR -on home ice, no less.... no answer. Get the Depends out, boys

:rolleyes:

Cool out.

Rangers gave up two goals because guys fell down. Outplayed the Lightning for another two periods (in addition to all 3 in Game 1) before they fell apart in the 3rd. Yep, shitting.

Played like a junior hockey team yesterday. Guys falling down. sloppy passing, missed open shots. I expect a big effort game 3. Save the depends for clyde/morty/arletta or whatever ever pen name freak they go by for when Baffert lifts that Belmont trophy for AP!

The best thing they can do is forget this game ever happened - there was nothing to take away from it, other than you can simply NOT take penalties against Tampa - they will make you pay...Surprised they didn't learn that from the Habs series.
I agree, Tom - I expect a huge effort from them as well in Tampa. Gut check time for both teams. Tampa tends to play a little too loose early in the game following a big win, NYR needs to come out blazing and not let up. 0-0 at the start of the 2nd period will spell big trouble.

You're delusional. But that's ok.

The rangers fans are ignoring the big elephant in the room. They are going to need score to more than 2 goals a game to beat the Lightning. The Lightning are going to get goals in this series so the Rangers offense has to pick it up or they will be in trouble.

OK buddy. If you're gonna tell me the Lightning have had more than one great period so far this series, I want what you're puffing on. That game would've been 2-1 Rangers going into the 3rd if Marty and Staal didn't slip on banana peels in open ice.

Joey, I'm not going to try and quantify this because it's senseless. The Lightning have had plenty of opportunity and the same goes for the Rangers. It's the two best teams in the East, for crying out loud.

What cannot be skewed, massaged or polished, is the fact that your goalie has given up 22 goals in 5 games to the Lightning this season. In contrast, Bishop has surrendered 11 in those same 5 games.

When your goalie is averaging giving up 4.4 goals a game, you need to score more than 2 goals to be in the discussion, no matter how pretty you want to believe your team is playing.

One thing I can see after watching both games...going to be fun series to watch

Made it through second OT of epic Hawks-Ducks Game 2 and was glad to look at score 4 hrs of sleep later:)...Both charters haven't even landed in Chicago yet and puck drop just 36 hrs way. Hawks core 4 man D rotation was an issue even before Keith, Seabrook, etc played 50-60 minutes last night this morning. Guess that 9 day layoff between series wasn't such a bad thing after all..:wf

* Actual D Line minutes:

Duncan Keith played 49:51, Brent Seabrook 47:56 and Niklas Hjalmarsson 47:35, while Kyle Cumiskey and Kimmo Timonen played a combined 35:19.

Well if they would allow soccer moves in Hockey then they could had save 20 minutes. ;)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bisGLo_mFGs

That header was great! Never new that was against the rules.

why they traded for a 40 something who logs the least amount of minutes on the back line and they don't even trust him to play in the clutch.......is beyond me.

old man looks lost out there

-bt-

I like the story of him coming back from, literally, almost the dead but I don't know how Q can give him any real minutes. Cost them a goal when he made a bad pinch and is just getting rocked out there because he can't avoid anyone. Cumiskey has Cup experience and fresh legs so hopefully he can start logging some real minutes.

Great Andrew Shaw quote ( paraphrased) from the Hawk's convention this past Summer:

Q: How have you avoided a history of concussions given your physical play?

A: Doesn't your brain have to bounce off your skull or something...I don't think I have a brain so that's why...

so that makes 5.5 defensemen

-bt-

Because they hoped to give him one last chance to win the cup. Hes done this year no matter what

5.25

The Blackhawks have no loyalty to him, he never played for the organization,GM, coach etc....The Blackhawks were hoping that he could come back to about 70-80% because then he would be a functional 5th-6th defenseman. The Flyers didn't clear him from blood clots till about a week before the trade dead line so that he couldn't be scouted in game situations. The Hawks took a leap of faith because he was coming off of a very solid year where he was a plus player averaging 20 min. a game. It hasn't worked out to the degree they had hoped but it was certainly worth a try.

I understand there's no loyalty, et, etc.
there doesn't have to be. it's a fairly free tryout and he retires at the end of this season no matter what.


and babcock to Toronto after all. why would you give up one cold city to go to another? I'd have gone to san jose in a minute!

These posts are, dare I say, almost prophetic by the way

Start Talbot

Is cross checking not a penalty anymore? Or just in the TB-NY series?

I'd say Hank is on a short leash - Don't know if they'll start Talbot, but I would not be shocked to see him put in if the Rangers fall behind Friday night. Lundqvist's confidence is shot, and that's the worst possible thing to happen to a goalie, particularly at this point of the series.

Bishop was clearly not himself either- the first goal from Brassard he never even saw coming. Need to hope that was just an aberration and not an injury of some sort.

Hard to see thru a human body unless you're an x-ray machine.

and there it is......3 games into the EC finals, and you want to pull, what you said was, "the best goalie in the world"

not sure if it's a new york thing or what, but as soon as a guy slumps ya'll are the first to throw dirt on him.

truth be told, the rangers CAN'T afford to start Talbot. You start Talbot, you send a message to your all world goalie he can be replaced, and if that's the case he's gonna want to be traded. This isn't like the flower in Pitt, he sucked and had to be pulled, but Vokum is no Talbott, Talbott is capable of a starting job on this team or more then half the other teams in the league.

truth be told, i watched half the game, and i noticed a lot of odd man rushes going into the NY zone, can't blame everything on hank, his defense hasn't exactly stood tall

-bt-

I agree with most of this. There are some exceptionally fast talented forwards in this series and both teams have a few weak link links on D. Match-ups are going to be key. The need to keep Girardi and McDonagh against the triplets and keep Yandle who is just awful defensively away from them. On the other side you want your best players going at Carle and especially Coburn.

I know Nash is playing OK but you need your best players to score goals in the playoffs. Like I said earlier the Rangers are going to need 4-5 goals a night to win this series, I'm not sure they can get them without Nash leading the way.

I thought Hank was shaky all night. He did a bad job on the clear on the first goal and obviously the last goal was a disaster. Everything in the middle really wasn't his fault. Starting Cam isnt even a thought that's crossed my mind. This is Hank's team and if it wasn't for him, they'd be on the golf course already.

People killing Nash for last night have no clue. The 5 goals they scored was not the problem, the 6 that they gave up were.

I honestly think that game yesterday, became a must win for the Rangers when they sent it to OT. They haven't scored all playoffs, they net 5 and still lose. That's devastating. But they have scrapped and clawed all season. I still have faith in this team, but they better batten down the hatches and recommit to that defensive system that they've played all season. Can't keep giving a team as good as Tampa, these prime scoring opportunities