It's only taken a period and three quarters to show the Rangers are way overmatched by the Sabres in this 2nd round series. It's now 3-0 Buffalo nearing the end of the middle frame, but more significantly, the Rangers just look inept at putting any pressure on the Sabres' defense, or their goalie (Ryan Miller). The officials have also shown quite quickly their willingness to turn a blind eye on anything the Sabres do to Rangers pest, Sean Avery, contributing to the lopsided powerplay situation thus far. But even without that disadvantage, these boys are in over their heads, and I'm seeing now how Buffalo got the President's Trophy this season.
The biggest disappointment has been that the 2nd and 3rd goals were soft ones that Lundqvist should've stopped. My only hope for them doing some damage in this series was that he'd stand on his head in net, and clearly that's not going to be the case here. That, and defenseman Rosival going down early in the game, has probably sealed their fate before the series really got underway. Oh well.
On the bright side, though, I'm feeling almost no stress or depression as this plays out, since I really only wanted them to improve on last year's results (which they did, in fine fashion, against Atlanta). Regardless of the outcome of this series, the 2006/07 Rangers season will be remembered as a success, whereas Sabres fans better hope their team wins the Cup, as anything less is going to be spelled f-a-i-l-u-r-e! (Ha, take that, Buffalo-ites!)
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Remember what I said....the fact that the Rangers spanked Atlanta in 4 games and had that huge layoff will ALWAYS be a contributing factor to lacklustre play in Game 1 (sometimes Game 2) of the following series. Even Markus Naslund mentioned it when asked about facing a rested Anaheim team (he felt they would be a step behind). What he doesn't realize is that his team is just plain lame...and doesn't look like anything that resembles the team that won the NorthWest Division in the regular season.
As for the Rangers? They probably won't win this battle of New York (state)...but I doubt very much they will be swept.
Lundqvist will be the key. The Rangers have enough talent up front to score some goals on Miller (impressed how they still played hard after being down 3-0 early) Shanahan didn't seem to be on his game, but scoring late might give him a shot in the arm for next game. If they can score early, and Lundqvist stands on his head, they'll be back in this series heading to MSG.
Great comments, guys, but just so we're clear: I'm absolutely OK with the Rangers bowing out early in the 2nd round this year!
In fact, that reminds me of a stat I heard last night. I don't have any way of confirming it (short of doing a whole more research than I'm willing to take on) but it's pretty interesting. The claim was: the Rangers became only the 2nd team to ever complete a 4-game sweep in the year after having been similarly swept themselves! The 1968 and 1969 Bruins were apparently the only other team to do this!
Which got me thinking... what if the Rangers get swept by Buffalo? What that make them the only team ever to be swept one playoff year only to sweep another team the next year before being swept again in that same year?? I guess I'll need to check that the '69 Bruins didn't have that experience...
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