In game Ranger update

End of game - Solid three period, 60 minute effort by the New York Rangers. Jaromir Jagr added a goal from Fedor Tyutin and Scott Gomez to make it 4-0. Tyutin had three assists, jagr had a goal and two assists and looked great, and the new lines looked stellar. They were tight defensively also, allowing only 14 shots. Henrik Lundqvist didn't have to be overly good, but he was good enough to get his seventh shutout of the season, the first Ranger to do that since a pretty good Ed Giacomin did it in 1970-71. Good game all around, let's just hope that this isn't only a one game thing. We're back in action on Thursday for Brian Leetch night. Until then...

End of 2nd Period - After two periods of play, the Rangers now have a 3-0 lead. Martin Straka scored a shorthanded, unassisted goal off of a terrible line change by the Thrashers. They miss Kovalchuk up front, as I still don't think they have recorded double digit shots. Brad Larson looked pretty banged up after a collision with Mark Recchi as well. The second period is usually the Rangers' worst period of the game, and that period wasn't so bad. The power play is the only thing that looks bad. Actually, it looked downright awful in that period. There has to be some kind of jolt to go through both units. They looked fine in the first period, but the second period was spent waiting to see if Atlanta would score shorthanded more than if the Rangers were going to stretch the lead. See you after the third.

I figured I'd keep you updated on the Ranger game with some of my thoughts and happenings. I figured after the bashing Tom Renney gave them yesterday, that the Rangers would come out hot. Here's what the first period looked like:

It took 16 minutes for the Thrashers to get a shot on goal. In that span, the Rangers tallied two goals, 12 shots and had a mini-fight. Colton Orr and Eric Boulton dropped the gloves, Sean Avery scored from Jaromir Jagr and Scott Gomez and then Brandon Dubinsky scored a highlight reel goal from Jagr and Fedor Tyutin.

As we speak, one of the league's best players made another stupid decision. Ilya Kovalchuk is a marquee player, but as evident from the playoffs last year, he can be dirty. Just now he left his skates and hit a defenseless Michal Roszival from behind into the boards. The hit could have been given with a clean shoulder, but Kovalchuk went over the line. He was thrown out and the Rangers will have a three minute power play at the beginning of the second period. Colton Orr took a roughing penalty by going after Kovalchuk, negating two minutes. Bad move by Kovalchuk and the way this game is going so far, the Thrashers were going to need all the help they could get. The league should look into it as well. I like Kovalchuk, but it was dirty, unnecessary and left Roszival bloodied and hurt. Back after the second.