Playing in That Shitty Home Away From Home -- Win and In

With just three games remaining in the regular season, the Rangers open up a home-and-home with the Islanders tonight in Nassau Coliseum. The Rangers are fighting for playoff positioning, and the Islanders are, well, writing the closing chapter of yet another year without a playoff series win (last time that happened: 1993 Patrick Division Finals. Yeah. It's been a while). However, with a win tonight or in any of their final 3 games, they're in the playoffs. So obviously, getting a win tonight is quite important.

While many may think, "Oh, it's just the Islanders. They're terrible and have a lot of injuries. Two easy wins LOL!" the Isles are much more dangerous than their record shows. The last two years they've played us especially hard. Ted Nolan's mantra of working hard every shift seems to baffle the Rangers. His 3 man forecheck destroys our soft defense. The reason that they don't blow us out every game is that their best players are Mike Comrie and Miro Satan. Watch out for those two hot shots!

But the Rangers play of late has been pretty strong. Yeah, they looked bad on Sunday against the Pens, but showed improved a bit in the OT win on Monday. And times like this are when guys like Henrik Lundqvist (who's been much, much better lately after his slump that lasted half the season) and Chris Drury (who scored the OT winner on Monday) step up and contribute big time.

If the Rangers want to win tonight, the defense has to hold strong and withstand the Isles forecheck. The offense simply needs to take advantage of the Fishies' rash of injuries. They're without I think half their defense corps and their starting goalie. That's just an invitation to run up the score, which they can most certainly do if pucks find their way to the net. A sweep of this home-and-home leading in to the regular season finale with the Devs would be huge.

On a side note, 2 of those 3 games last night didn't go as planned. Pittsburgh beat Philly in regulation. While it clinches the division title for the Pens (good for them; they get to hang a banner in their new arena. How special), it gave the Flyers zero points. The Canes whomped Tampa 6-2. While clinching a playoff spot would be nice, it's pretty wrapped up anyway. Besides, better to write your own destiny than let some redneck team do it for you. The killer game was the Devils and Bruins -- a 3-2 SO decision for the Devils. Not only did it put the Devs 4 points ahead of us (we do, however, have a game in hand), it gave the B's a point, putting them just 1 point behind us. Don't you love Gary Bettman's new NHL? With 3 point games, it's like everyone wins! Except the people close to you in the standings.

Let's Go Rangers!