11-5-3: Wild One In Washington

The Rangers returned to their winning ways on Friday, following up their two woeful losses with a fast and loose 6-3 win over Washington. There were mistakes galore by both sides but the Blueshirts ended up on top, which is all that matters at the end of the day.

With less than 24 hours until the next match, I will make this quick. Late Hits:

*Ranted after last game that "as the captain and one of the team's top penalty killers, (Callahan) has to be smarter and he has to be a leader." Well, he certainly did that this evening. Cally stayed out of the box, forced two turnovers that handed Ruslan Fedotenko a pair of goals and he had a sneaky-smart feed to Brad Richard$ for a goal. Outstanding effort for the young man man with the C.

*Another nice turnaround from Brian Boyle, who had perhaps his best performance of the season (not that that is saying much). The big man won faceoffs and actually got the nerve to skate towards the front of the net, which paid off in a goal.

*Cally's assist would have been more impressive had it not come in the same game as Stepan's set-up for Marian Gaborik. The two of them are showing better chemistry than Dubi and Jagr did a few years back.

*Considering Dubi played less than three minutes, perhaps it is time to try something wild and reckless to get him going again. Who has a reputation of being wild and reckless (mistaken as it may be)?? Throw Dubi alongside Avery and put young Carl Hagelin in there. Three players with speed, grit and some skill.

*Hagelin had a nice little debut. As with any Red Berenson product, the Swede showed good hockey smarts and a great work ethic. Let's hope it was just the start for him.

*Washington certainly is not the party city that Montreal and Miami are, right?

*The Rangers can't make it easy, can they? Up 3-nil they had to open the door and let Washington start walking through. Unreal.

*Ranger power play? Still terrible, going 1-5. Great shot by Arty for that one though, using a defenseman as a screen before firing the puck in off the post.

*Watching their utterly inept defense, I can imagine Caps fans were thinking: 'if only Tom Poti was healthy!' I'll be honest, I missed Peanut Butta Poti Time.

*Ok, so seriously they were whining about the lack of Mike Green but even the Vespa rider couldn't have made Dennis Wideman and/or Roman Hamrlik not have horrible performances.

*Speaking of horrible defensemen: Del Zaster. Six goals by the team, zero points for the offensive d-man. No shots, over three minutes of power play time. But he was +2! John Carlson, one goal and one assist. Just sayin' ...

*PHW Three Stars
3-John Carlson - one goal and two assists.
2-Dan Girardi - two assists.
1-Ryan Callahan - three assists.

Scotty Hockey Three Stars
3-Girardi - Dan-O was on the ice for seven of the nine goals, playing just over 29 minutes. Both of his assists were secondary but he was still there on both ends of the ice. Too bad he and Ryan McDonagh are still human and couldn't take up all of Eminger and Woywitka's minutes.
2-Hank - The King kept the Rangers in this one with several utterly outrageous saves.
1-Cally - Don't remember any Chris Drury performances like this, do you?