Wake up from your turkey coma, its time for hockey once again.
New York Rangers at the Florida Panthers.
Over the years, Ive been to a handful of Rangers games. The team Ive seen the most often play the Rangers has been the Panthers. Ive seen 5-0 shutout wins, and Ive seen 2-1 last minute losses. Needless to say, I believe anything can happen when the Rangers play the Panthers.
The Panthers, aside from Michael Frolik, have a problem with consistently putting up points.Frolik leads the team with 13 points divided up between four goals and nine assists. Mike Santorelli leads the team with six goals..... that's right, six goals. No one on the Panthers bench has scored over seven goals so far this season, but there are plenty of assists for everyone on the team. But miraculously, they are +2 in the goals for/goals against ratio. You can chalk that success up to Mr. Tomas Vokoun. Vokoun has an 8-8-0 record and a .924 save percentage, which beats out Henrik Lundqvist's .910 save percentage. And no matter how far down the standing the Panthers are, as long as Vokoun is between the pipes there will be a lot of saves.
The Rangers are coming off another disappointing loss against Tampa Bay where they got lit up for two straight periods then resuscitated themselves for a third period all for not. Marian Gaborik has been slumping, and needs to get his game together so the Rangers can keep their wins up to stay in contention for the playoffs. The secondary scoring has been keeping up their end of the bargain, and now its time for the primary scorers to tear it up
Also, Henrik Lundqvist needs to chill the hell out. His frustration is getting it the way of the game and its visibly noticeable. The last thing the Rangers need is for their star goalie to have a meltdown. He needs to just take it slow, relax out there, and play calmly like he has in the past.
My Diagnosis
With the lack of consistent scoring on the side of the Panthers, its hard to think how they could come away with a win tonight. Vokoun will stand on his head once again, but I think the Rangers scorers will definitely be too much for the Panthers to handle.
My Predictions
Rangers win 3-1
Gaborik will get the first goal.
Frolik will score the second soon after.
Fedotenko will get the second Rangers goal one.
The final goal will be an empty netter.
Enjoy the game tonight everyone!
No comments:
Post a Comment