Game 5 Caps vs. Rangers 4-24-2009 Post-Mortem

So maybe they don't Sean Avery to take stupid aggression penalties... Onto the Battle Damage Assessment...

THE GOOD:

• You wanted secondary scoring, you got secondary scoring from none other than Matt "Omar" Bradley twice, the first two of his playoff career. It doesn't get any more secondary than that. But what was the most interesting to us was that the icebreaker came shorthanded. During the regular season, the Rangers tied the Calgary Flames for the most shorthanded goals allowed with 13. It was a huge problem for them when Tom Renny was coach, but not so much since John Tortorella took over. It cost them tonight.
• And for good measure, A.O. and Alexander "Slappy" Semin each notched goals. Henrik Lundqvist not only gave up a soft goal to Omar for the second one of the game, but was astounding to us was that the four goals Lundqvist gave up came on just 14 shots. Oh and some pretty sick moves by A.O. on his goal. Who else could possibly be the NHL MVP?
• The Penalty Killers came up big again, not only did Omar Get (a) Shorty, but they once again killed every Power Play the Rangers had tonight going 4 for 4.
• So Sean Avery wasn't around to take his cadre of penalties but that doesn't mean the Rangers still didn't try to bait the Caps into penalties. The Caps kept their cool but big time kudos to referees Don Van Massenhoven and Mike Hasenfratz who did an excellent job of keeping this game under control.
• Kudos too to Bruce Boudreau who kept the stars on the bench late in the game when the matter was well decided, especially after Colton Orr tried to take Slappy's head off. There was no need to run up the score nor taking the chance of very important players getting hurt out there with the way the Rangers were playing.

THE BAD:

• Sorry folks, but we don't consider a 20 save effort for a shutout worthy of praise. As a matter of fact Simeon "the Saviour" Varlamov caused the hooking penalty Shaone Morrrissonnn took in the third period. The Rangers have figured out that he overplays and is susceptible to backdoor and passes back across the crease.
• The Power Play, how is it they went 0 for 7 on a night when Lundqvist was not on top of his game?

THE UGLY:

• Our vast network of spies and informants tell us that somebody in Section 100 apparently spit on the Rangers bench tonight which is why you saw Tortorella going nuts on the crowd behind him. But even worse was the water bottle that went flying from the Rangers bench into the crowd. That our friends is a violation of Suggestion 23.7 which states "Any player, goalkeeper or non-playing Club personnel who physically interferes with the spectators, becomes involved in an altercation with a spectator, or throws any object at a spectator, shall automatically incur a game misconduct penalty and the Referee shall report all such infractions to the Commissioner who shall have full power to impose such further penalty as he shall deem appropriate." An automatic $200 fine is also assessed but you may have noticed, no Ranger was ejected for the incident. We have our doubts that the League Office will do anything either.
• While the Caps weren't force feeding the puck to Omar for two periods to complete the Hat Trick, they were force feeding the puck to Mike "BEAM ME UP" Green to get him out of his slump. That's not how you do it folks.

Well folks, what can we say, the bounces and breaks once again went our way tonight. Michal Rozival falls down and Omar was gone on his shorthanded break. Lundqvist gave up as soft of a goal as you're ever going to see by a goalie of his caliber. A.O. took only 3 shots on goal tonight with 4 missing and only 1 getting blocked. As a matter of fact, the Rangers only blocked 11 tonight. There's certainly something to be said about quality of shots but we all know Lundqvist would like to have that second goal he gave up to Omar back. So the misery gets extended and we play on Sunday in the Garden. Expect another donnybrook.