May 11 2015
Dobber
2015-05-11
Thoughts on Rask/Subban; the Devils; and of course the Flames, Ducks, Rangers, Caps and more …
***
Rangers pushed things to a Game 7 after a nail-biter last night. I won’t bore you with a rehash of the game, I’ll leave that to other sites and I’m sure you saw it anyway. But Girardi, Klein and McDonagh combined for 20 blocked shots so you have an idea of what their game plan was defensively. And given the fact that the Caps still got 45 shots through, it’s probably not the most effective plan.
Chris Kreider has three goals in two games and now boasts 16 in 52 career playoff games. He just turned 24 and he’s already played 52 playoff games. Amazing that it nearly matches one-third of his regular season total (169 games). It’s a 24-goal pace over 82 games which tops his actual regular season high of 21.
For the second time this series, Yandle was held to under 14 minutes of ice time. He has just 14 points in 32 games as a Ranger, which isn’t horrible…but it’s still a step down.
*
I was just looking up the contract statuses of a couple of Rangers’ defensemen when I noticed – five of them will be making at least $4.5 million next year. Five. At one position. Lucky for them, Arizona swallows about half of Yandle’s contract.
*
The Rangers have shut down Alex Ovechkin for four consecutive games. Again – I’ll feel for him if his team gets eliminated again. He’ll shoulder all the blame, no question. Twice during the regular season he was shut out of four straight like that. One time it got to five games (back in October).
Ovechkin last night: "We're going to come back and win the series."