Colorado Avalanche left wing Alex Tanguay (40) scores on New York Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist (30), of Sweden, during the shootout period of an NHL hockey game Thursday Nov. 13, 2014. The Colorado Avalanche won 4-3. (AP Photo/Frank Franklin II)
NEW YORK – I’m writing this blog on the last train out of New York’s Penn Station back to Syosset, N.Y., otherwise known as Long Island. That’s where I’m staying, Long Island, despite tonight’s game being played in New York City. Economics is why.
Decent New York hotel rooms run about $300-$500 a night right now. My stately room at the Long Island Marriott is $129 a night. Ergo, I’m on the train.
Nobody is drunk on this train, nobody is speaking too loudly, so it’s nice to be able to type in peace here. OK, just kidding. There are drunk, loud people all around me.
Amid this cacophony of inebriation, I offer the following sober-minded observations from tonight’s ice hockey game between the Avs and Rangers at the World’s Most Famous Arena (except, maybe, for that one in Rome):
– Matt Duchene and Alex Tanguay led the way up front tonight. Semyon Varlamov did most of the tough work on the back end.
Duchene played with purpose, urgency, and any other Important Sports Adjective you can name. His team really needed a W tonight, and Duchene was there to deliver. He danced around Rangers defenders all night, drew a penalty, scored a goal, assisted on another and generally just made good things happen most of the time when the puck came on his stick.
– Tanguay, the wily veteran with a bag full of tricky moves, scored a big goal in regulation, almost had a SportsCenter Top 10 moment in overtime and then won the game in the shootout, winning a game of chicken with Henrik Lundqvist.
– Varlamov was strong, especially in the third period. His pad stop on Rick Nash toward the end was a difference-maker, and he was big on that Rangers power play that started with 3:11 left, after Erik Johnson tried to imitate a lumberjack chopping into a tree with his slash on Martin St. Louis.
– There were still a few, um, issues with the Avs’ game. Nick Holden and Zach Redmond had a couple of really dreadful shifts, both of which resulted in goals against. The first goal, by Kevin Hayes, came after one of the longest delayed penalties I’ve ever seen. The Rangers actually cleared the Avs zone with a back pass to start all over, then re-entered and cycled the puck around before Hayes got an easy tap-in with Redmond and Nathan MacKinnon late on the back-check. St. Louis went around Holden like he was standing still prior to the other goal, scoring by Dan Girardi, with Redmond again late coming over on the other side.
Not sure what has happened to Holden, but he has to be better than this. Redmond can atone for some of his defensive mistakes with plays at the other end, but right now Holden isn’t giving them anything good at either end.
– The line featuring Gabe Landeskog and Jarome Iginla continues to do…not much. John Mitchell centered the line tonight, and I thought he was OK, and Landeskog made a couple of really hard moves to the net. But he also turned the puck over in glaring fashion a couple times, and Iginla still isn’t getting much of anything in terms of quality scoring chances.
– If the Avs can somehow pull out Saturday’s game in Newark against the Devils, they will come home 6-8-5 and a 2-2 mark on this road trip. It’s a bad atmosphere at the Prudential Center, a dead, apathetic building housing a middle-of-the-road club. These are the kinds of games, in other words, that can be trouble for a team still searching for some real confidence.
I don’t think any major confidence can be gleaned from tonight’s game. But maybe a little can. For now, that’s progress.
Duchene sums up the game:
