Rangers Need Some Home Cooking

Through the miracle of moden technology called Verizon, I am writing this on the train ride home.

If you were at the game or watched it at home, you saw the Rangers dominate on shots, but also watched as the Ducks capitalized on Blueshirt mistakes.

Here’s the problem: The Rangers play a different game at home compared to on the road. That said, the Blueshirts make too many mistakes at home, and hope that Henrik Lundqvist can save them.

Unfortunately, he can’t.

As good as Lundqvist has been, the Rangers still can’t leave their goalie naked out there for odd man rushes. They limit those on the road, but get out of the gameplan at the Garden. The result comes a loss for the Blueshirts, a frustrated crowd and an angry Tom Renney, who is not at fault here.

Until the team cuts down on their mistakes at the Garden expect more of this, because the Rangers can’t go toe to toe with the high scoring teams.

Just my throughts on the train. I will have the NYSD game story up later.

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From Today’s Practice

Tom Renney held an option skate after yesterday’s 96 minute marathon. Most players though were on the ice, which the coach felt was good and bad.

“The idea behind an optional skate is that guys use that time to workout and rest,” Renney said. “Most guys feel they have to be out there. One of the reasons why I don’t go out there is that guys will be there because I am out there. But it tells you what guys you have.”

Not skating today were:

Brendan Shanahan, Sean Avery, Michael Nylander, Fedor Tyutin, Ryan Callahan, Matt Cullen and Game 3 hero Michal Rozsival, who could use the rest.

But the Rangers need to hand it to themselves, they did what they needed to do yesterday, playing in front of a Garden crowd totally on their side.

It’s interesting to see that, because the Blueshirts totally turned around their home record from a pedestrian 12-14-4 on Feb.24 to a 12-1-1 mark since then.

So what has changed?

“We changed our style of play at home,” said Henrik Lundqvist, one of the key reasons why they have an eight game home streak. “We do the small things and take some pride at home, like we do on the road. I think we realize we will get chances from that. We stay back and play a control game, and we will get chances.”

That’s good because the Rangers need to win tomorrow’s game and then a Game 6 at the Garden if they are going to have any chance in this series, because they will have to win a game in Buffalo and maybe two games is too much to ask.

Some other notes from Greenburgh: Jaromir Jagr was asked if there was a defenseman who could contain him. He quipped about him not being born yet.

The mood overall was lighthearted, yet confident and who can blame them, the Rangers looked good not just yesterday, but also for most of Game 2, as well. Now they know there is still a lot of work to do, but this series is not over by any means.

Later on, I will have a report on NY Sports Day from Greenburgh and check out last night’s game story as well.

Posted under Blog