After a long and winding road for both myself and the New York Rangers, I can happily confirm two things - The New York Rangers are back in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and the New Blue Review Blog is back just in time for them as well!
The Rangers finished the regular season with a league best record of 53-22-7, establishing team records for wins (53) and points (113), eclipsing the previous marks set in 1994, and we all know how 1994 ended.....
The Blueshirts offense was led by Rick Nash, who tallied an impressive 42 goal campaign. There were two other Rangers who hit the 20-goal mark.....and if you guessed Martin St. Louis and Chris Kreider, give yourself a round of applause.
Derick Brassard was the most unselfish Ranger this year, dishing out a team-leading and career high of 41 assists, two more than Derek Stepan's 39. All in all, this Rangers team was a very unselfish bunch as 8 Blueshirts finished with 25 or more assists.
One of the biggest surprises of this season was the emergence of rookie Kevin Hayes, who adjusted to the NHL, and once he found his comfort zone, tallied 17 goals and 28 assists for an impressive 45 points. Many of his goals were highlight reel quality, and his goal against the New York Islanders where he spun, beat Jaroslav Halak and then was obliterated by a Matt Martin semi-late hit may well be the goal of the year for the Rangers.
The defense, led by Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi and Marc Staal continued to block shots, make smart plays in their own zone, and chipped in offensively. Kevin Klein, who is still recovering from an "upper-body injury" suffered against the Washington Capitals, tied Dan Boyle for the team lead for goals by a defenseman with 9, and of those 9, I believe all 9 were clutch, important goals, including 2 OT winners.
The goaltending was the story of this President's Trophy winning season for the Rangers. Henrik Lundqvist posted another 30 win season, the 9th time in his career the King has reached that lofty throne. After suffering a scary vascular injury against the Carolina Hurricanes, and playing one more game after that, the King was sidelined, and the Goalbuster, Cam Talbot manned the net for New York, and he earned himself an opportunity after this season to be a starter somewhere in the NHL. Talbot posted a 21-9-4 record including 5 shutouts, tying the King in posting doughnuts. Lest we forget, the "Buffalo Soldier", Mackenzie Skapski started two games, both against the Sabres, going 2-0-0 with 1 shutout and a 0.50 goals against average.
The Rangers captured the President's Trophy for the third time in franchise history, and secured that they will have home-ice advantage in every playoff round this year. They will open the playoffs against the Pittsburgh Penguins.
On November 11 at MSG, the Rangers posted a 5-0 whitewash of the Penguins, with Lundqvist stopping all 33 shots he faced, and goals from Mats Zuccarello, Martin St. Louis, Kevin Klein, Derick Brassard and Rick Nash.
The second meeting of the season featured the strangest ending to a hockey game I have ever seen in my close to 45 years on this planet. On November 15, the Rangers fell behind at the CONSOL Energy center 1-0 on a Blake Comeau goal, but answered back 15 seconds later on a goal by now-former Ranger Lee Stempniak. Martin St. Louis tallied to give the Blueshirts a 2-1 lead, but Evgeni Malkin tied the score at 2. This game went into and past overtime, and in the shootout, the Rangers believed they had won the game when Dan Boyle's shot beat Marc-Andre Fleury, but then both teams were called back from the dressing room when video review determined that Boyle made contact with the puck twice, which nullified the goal, and Brandon Sutter took advantage of the second chance, scoring to give Pittsburgh the very strange 3-2 shootout victory.
On December 8 back at MSG, the Rangers spotted the Penguins a 1-0 lead, then got 3 consecutive goals from J.T. Miller, Rick Nash and Kevin Hayes to take a 3-1 lead. The Pens. with 2 goals in a 24-second span in the 3rd period, rallied to send the game into overtime, but Kevin Klein buried the game winner with 1:15 left in the extra mini-period, giving the Rangers a 4-3 win.
Exactly one month later, on January 8, the Rangers once again headed into the Steel City and wasted no time as Rick Nash scored 26 seconds into the game, and 5 1/2 minutes later Derick Brassard tallied to make it 2-0. Sidney Crosby then scored a power play goal to cut the Ranger lead in half at the end of one period. Rick Nash again wasted little time, scoring just 2:39 into the second period to give the Rangers their two goal lead back, and then Derek Stepan padded the lead even more to give the Rangers a commanding 4-1 lead after 40 minutes. The teams traded goals in the third period, with David Perron lighting the lamp for the Penguins, and Stepan once again finding twine for the 5-2 final score.
As the playoffs open, and the Rangers owning a 3-0-1 record against Pittsburgh this year, I will predict that the Rangers will handle an injury-riddled Penguins team, taking the series in 5 games. Pittsburgh is without their best defenseman, Kris Letang, as well as defensemen Christian Ehrhoff and Derrick Pouliot, and the highly regarded offense from the Penguins has gone dry. I also believe the Rangers have a huge advantage in goal, as Henrik Lundqvist is healthy, and more importantly, after tasting the Stanley Cup Final last season, he is hungry to bring the most beautiful trophy in sports back to the city that never sleeps.
Game 1 preview to come tomorrow, as well as live social media posts throughout game one.
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