Boxscore
The good things we can take from tonight's brutal and season-worst beating:
* Michael Del Zotto scored his rookie-leading and league-leading 4th goal for his 9th point of the same stature. This marks the final game 9 of the regular season in which he can play before the Rangers must make the final decision on his roster spot [losing the ability to re-assign him to the juniors]. I think it is pretty safe to say that he is a lock given his astounding credentials in these 9 games.
* Enver Lisin scored again.
* A bad loss to an elite team is a huge wake-up call for Rangers team, fans, and administration. Laying out teams like the Maple Leafs is one thing, but manifesting the same heroics against last year's Western Conference champs?
One thing we have yet to see this season is how the Rangers react from this type of loss. Albeit the scoreboard showing 7-3, it should be noted that a few details account for what could of been a closer game:
1) The Rangers put away a puck a split-second after a quick whistle in the first period that should of been a goal.
2) One of Devin Setoguchi's tallies came in a situation where the puck was saved-by and beneath Lundqvist before being stuffed in by the Shark winger, inconsistent with the quick whistles given to the Sharks goaltender (1).
3) The minor penalties taken by Sean Avery were very loose in comparison to how the rest of the game was called (gee I wonder why..)
4) The two shots hitting posts (Gaborik, Kotalik).
* Besides the loss in general as a wake-up call to build on their mistakes and move forward - hopefully this game will also serve as a wake-up to John Tortorella for his goaltender selection over the last few contests. Let's look at the last 5 prior to tonight's loss:
CAPITALS (W: 4-3):..............LUNDQVIST
DUCKS(W: 3-0):....................VALIQUETTE
MAPLE LEAFS (W: 7-2):.......LUNDQVIST
KINGS (W: 4-2):....................LUNDQVIST
MAPLE LEAFS (W: 4-1):........LUNDQVIST
(Lundqvist played the first 3 games of the season, prior to these, as well.)
I think Henrik Lundqvist would of given the Rangers a much better chance to win tonight. Perhaps Valiquette would be able to get 2 points out of the Devils on Thursday or either of the Maple Leafs victories in the past week. Here's what John Tortorella said about goaltender selection going into this game:
“I have no plan, I go day to day... Henrik’s not playing all the games. Henrik’s not going to have the amount he has in prior years, the Olympics comes into it, too, there’s another five games there. It’s not like I have it all mapped out here. My thinking is that Valley is going to play more this year and we need to find him games and he had a shutout. I’m not hesitant to put him in. Hank was a big part of our success the last couple of games, it’s not like he’s tired. I looked at this and thought it was a good start for Valley.
“You conference games, you’re fighting against these teams, obviously that comes into your thinking. But it’s not like I’m wracking my brains saying I’ve got to play Hank in all the conference games, all the division games. It’s the way the schedule worked out here, there’s a few of the non-conference games early on. It just worked out that way. I want to get him (Valiquette) back in. It’s not going to be Valley plays a game, Hank plays a month and Valley gets another game. It’s not going to be that way and I think Hank understands that also.”
It does not seem as if John Tortorella made his choice because of Lundqvist's health [after a couple of rough recent games], or even in acknowledgement of the top-tier Sharks, but rather just in interest of a spread-workload schedule. His concerns are understandable, but I think considering his opponents (ie: playing Valley only against the bottom-tier teams) for his goaltender selection would win more games.
Chris Higgins still has not scored a goal.
Marian Gaborik's point-streak stopped at 8.
VS Post-Game
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