Adding Insult to Injury

 

Patrick Hoffman (HV)

 

The New York Rangers were out-hustled, out-hit and out-worked in a physical 5-3 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers. To make matters worse, the Rangers lost Marek Malik (upper body strain), Henrik Lundqvist (left shoulder) and Brendan Shanahan (concussion) to injuries.

 

“We did not compete as well as we wanted to today,” Rangers head coach Tom Renney said after the game. “We cheated a bit, we did not create enough traffic in front of the net and we did not get dirty enough to win the hockey game.”

 

Not only did the Rangers lose this game, but in the third period, they lost their star Brendan Shanahan after he collided with Flyers’ forward Mike Knuble at the Rangers blue line. After being down on the ice for 10 minutes, Shanahan wanted to sit up but doctors on the ice advised otherwise.

 

The Rangers themselves seemed to lay down the whole game as they seemed out of place against the last place Flyers.

 

“Starting with our power play, we were getting to places second and it just infiltrated into other areas of our game,” Renney said.

 

After going 6 for 9 in their last two games, the Rangers power play was highly disorganized as they had trouble putting pucks on net and creating traffic in front of Flyers netminder Antero Niittymaki and as a result, their lack of success creped into other areas of the Rangers play.

 

One of those areas was defensive coverage, which was the cause for the Flyers first goal when Mike Knuble made a great pass to an open Geoff Sanderson and also sparked the Flyers second goal when R.J. Umberger beat Henrik Lundqvist for a shorthanded goal after Girardi had the puck bounce over his stick at the Flyers’ blue line.

 

Despite outshooting the Flyers 15-6 in the first period, the Flyers came out of the first period with a 2-1 lead. Things looked to get even darker for the Blueshirts after Lundqvist went down after having a hard Sanderson slap shot go off his left shoulder.

 

However, Henrik played the rest of the period and managed to stop 10 of 11 shots, only allowing Simon Gagne’s goal, another product of the Rangers poor defensive coverage.

 

The Rangers replaced Lundqvist in the third period with back up Stephen Valiquette but that was not enough to stop the bleeding as the Flyers’ added two more goals (Recently acquired Scottie Upshall and Dimitry Afanasenkov), despite being stopped on a penalty shot after Afansenkov was taken down by Rangers’ defenseman Karel Rachunek.

 

The Rangers other star forward, Jaromir Jagr, also went down hard in the third period after setting up Petr Prucha’s power play. After making a pass from behind the net, Jagr was hit in the chest high by Flyers’ defenseman Derian Hatcher. However, Jagr said that what hurt him the most on that play is that when he went down, he ended up biting his tongue.

 

The rest of the third period remained rough as Aaron Ward fought Joni Pitkanen and managed to injure his right hand, which required stitches after the game. Matt Cullen would also add a meaningless shorthanded goal with a minute left to play in regulation.

 

The team now has to focus on tomorrow afternoon’s matchup against the Chicago Blackhawks, another game that is crucial for the Blueshirts.

“Like the last two weeks, tomorrow is a huge game for us so we need to come in here and play our best” Lundqvist said.

Injury Report:

 

- Brendan Shanahan is awake and alert after being taken to St. Vincent’s hospital. He will be re-evaluated in the next couple of days.
- Henrik Lundqvist (shoulder) said he is good to go and is expected to be in net tomorrow against the Blackhawks.

- Marek Malik suffered a left shoulder injury towards the end of the second period. He is expected to miss tomorrow’s game.

- Aaron Ward needed stitches in his right hand after fighting Flyers defenseman Joni Pitkanen in the third period but is not expected to miss any time.

 

 

Photo: Henrik Lundquist is attended by medical staff. © Andris Jansons (HV)