The End Of "The Embargo"

As some of you may recall, a little less than a month ago I entered a self-imposed "NY Rangers-free zone", henceforth referred to as "the embargo" for reasons too nebulous to explain. I was very discouraged by the team's 3-6-1 start (and winless on the road!) in a season where they were being touted as a serious contender to win it all, and also by the fact that they were seemingly finding it nigh-impossible to score any goals (in the final 4 games prior to the start of the embargo, they'd tallied a grand total of 3!) So I committed to giving them about a month to get their house in order, during which time I wouldn't be watching them and swearing at their inadequacies.

With our impending trip to San Francisco next week, and a clearly-stated intention on the parts of Boneman and Shane to provide me with an update the instant I lifted the embargo, I figured I probably needed to do so this week. So I booked them and a meeting room - my old office, as a matter of fact - over lunch today, brought in pizza and they proceeded to fill in the past three weeks for me.

I'd actually heard two scores over that period, both of them losses to the Islanders by a single goal (3-2 and 2-1). I therefore didn't have very high hopes, since they were now effectively 3-8-1, as far as I knew. My lunch companions didn't waste any time launching into their recap of the "lost games", though, as they ran through each one, in order, from the point following the embarrassing 4-1 loss to the Leafs four Saturdays ago.

As it turned out, the Rangers rattled off 4 consecutive wins as soon as the embargo started:

• a 3-1 victory over Tampa Bay, at home
• a 2-0 win over the Capitals, at home
  
• a 2-1 shootout decision over the Devils, at home
• a 2-0 shutout of the Flyers, at home.

So they'd gone on a 4-game home winning streak, still not scoring very much (8 regulation goals in 4 games) but more significantly only allowing 2 goals over that stretch, making victory much more likely.

Next came the first of the 2 "known" results, a 3-2 loss at Long Island.

Then they proceeded to go one better and post a 5-game winning streak:

• a 4-2 win over Pittsburgh at MSG
  
• finally, their first road victory, by 3-2 (in a shootout) in Toronto
• another 4-2 result, in New Jersey
• another shootout win, this time 4-3 in Philadelphia
• and a 4-3 Overtime decision on the road against Pittsburgh

Ending that run was the second Islander loss, meaning that the bad boys from Long Island had terminated both of the winning streaks by their rivals.

More important, though, was the incredible 9-2-0 record by the non-evil New York hockey team, improving from 3-6-1 to 12-8-1 in less than a month! Quite a turnaround, comparable to what they accomplished after I gave up on them late last season. Makes me wonder why I don't stop paying attention to them more often!

Shane also provided several sheets of statistics, including current standings, highlights and lowlights over that period, and anything else I might've wondered about. I asked how several of the other teams had been faring, and generally got caught up with the current state of the NHL. I couldn't have scripted a better re-entry path back into the world of hockey after more than three weeks away, and I thank the two of them for that (again)!