Rangers Beat Ducks and Other NHL News

The New York Rangers got back to their winning ways last night against the Anaheim Ducks. Didn't see the game, but it's a positive sign when they score 4 times on special teams. Amazingly, it was Scott Gomez's first power-play goal of the season. This is going to sound stupid, but the reason the Rangers don't have a successful power play is that they don't have scorers. Everyone seems to be a passer. Because of that, no one shoots and the penalty killing unit doesn't need to focus on any one guy on the ice. Chris Drury and Markus Naslund are tied for the team lead in goals with 15, but neither of them are a real sniper (in comparison, the NHL leader is Alexander "The Great" Ovechkin who has 31).

This team, though, is led by King Henrik and is tops in the league in penalty killing and are one of the best at preventing goals. But just because this team plays a defensive style of hockey, it does not mean they need to be so bad at putting the puck in the net (they are dead last in the Eastern Conference in Power Play % and have gotten killed on shorthanded goals so far this season).

 

Also:

-Pierre LeBrun breaks down the Atlantic Division

-Surprise, Surprise...Rick DiPietro is out for the season.

-And, lastly, this sad story from the New York Times, revives the debate about what place fighting should have in hockey. Hockey gets a bad rap at times, but I believe that fighting needs to stay in the game. It's a small aspect of the game, but an important one and one that certainly entertains the fans. All fans love scoring...but they also love their fighters. And at some point, you need to just realize that 999,999 times out of 1,000,000, these types of things don't happen. Every sport has these moments:

 

Baseball: Pitcher/fan/coach/runner/fielder being struck by a bat or a hitter being killed by a pitched ball

Football: Paralyzing hit to head or choking horse collar of a player

Basketball: Dive into the stands to save the ball and closeness of the fans to the court

Hockey: Stick/skate used as a weapon or someone hitting their head on the ice/boards

The problem is that you can't always eliminate these risks. Sometimes you just need to play the sport. This is a sad story, but one that hopefully won't be repeated anytime soon.