The Mouth was absolutely livid last Saturday night on November 11th and it wasn’t because he ran out of his favorite beer and his beloved Ellio’s frozen Pizza.
The Big Man couldn’t believe his eyes when he witnessed a Tri-Fecta of disgraces that took place on the ice during the early going of the first period in a game where the Rangers were on the road taking on the Calgary Flames.
Curtis Glenncross of the Flames who was recently asked by his coaches to step up his physical play did so by delivering a cheap and calculated head shot to Rangers Captain Chris Drury. Everything about this dastardly act was disgraceful.
Starting with Glencross's disregard that he could possibly induce serious injury to a fellow player, the lack of any penalty being called by referees Dan O’Halloran and Kevin Pollock. The most appalling maybe of all was the lack of reaction by the Rangers of themselves when no player blew their fuse, lost their temper or felt angry enough to retaliate for the dirty hit on their Captain Chris Drury.
The Mouths ire is obviously up in this particular video and it very well should be. This surely wouldn’t have happened in the 1980’s up till the mid 1990’s, but this kind of nonsense is fast approaching in becoming a weekly occurrence league wide.
Remember Tomorrow Night Theo Fleury is our guest on Blueshirt Banter Radio at 8 PM
Good stuff there. Where's the passion amongst the Blueshirts?
ReplyDeleteYou know - it's funny how appearances can be deceiving. Last night on the show, and across a lot of blogs - even from Coach Torts himself, there's been this 'mantra' of grittiness, toughness, 'being harder to play against', etc....
ReplyDeleteI decided to do some research (I know how shocking that is....) - and it turns out that with basically the same # of games played, the Rangers are 2nd in the league so far this season in hits. And they're only 4 behind Pittsburgh for #1. Carolina lags by 27 with one fewer game (17 v. 18).
So, while I absolutely agree that the #NYR aren't protecting each other - especially their most precious asset - Henrik - it's not like there's no hitting going on.
I was really surprised when I saw the #'s - 'cause I figured they'd be mid-pack at best - or even bottom third.
Maybe they need to be smarter with their hits? Or are we just missing them because what the stats counters are calling hits we'd be calling "wuss bumps"? Food for thought, I guess...
Just a copy/paste of me bitching about this that night:
ReplyDeleteThe New York Rangers should feel a great sense of embarrassment after tonight's game. This has nothing to do with the final score, and everything to do with watching your captain take a cheap shot and doing nothing afterward. Messier, Kocur, Graves, Beukeboom, Tikkanen, King, Domi, Kypreos and countless others would have answered the bell if that was a teammate of theirs. Maybe this team is so distant from each other that no one even thought to do so??? If so, then that is why this team will go nowhere! They're a bunch of gutless punks! But the thing is, there are guys on this team that have stood up for teammates in the past! Callahan, Dubinsky, Staal, Avery and Byers have all been there for fellow Blueshirts. Do Callahan and Dubinsky feel that they've secured spots on the roster so they don't need to fight anymore? If so, maybe they need to try making the team again. Is there no sense of pride, at least in the jersey that Drury was wearing? I understand that there is an instigator rule, but it makes even less sense to watch a teammate laying there. At least Girardi had the stones go up to Glencross, though my guess is nothing came of that because Girardi new if he got his head beat in no one would be there later for him. Overall things like this will be the Rangers undoing, as most Cup winners are built on talent as well as TOUGHNESS.
Now tonight it was great to see Callahan drop the gloves and take matters into his own hands when the refs didn't call anything on Bogosian. This is the stuff we need to see from Cally, as well as scoring and playing great two way hockey.
One more thing since I always complain about the Rangers lacking toughness... This could have been addressed recently when Adam Mair ($758,000) was put on waivers by the Sabres. But for some reason Glen Sather did not feel the need to add a player that will stick up for his teammates, get nasty and be more useful than Aaron Voros...