Bantering Points: 3/23/17
News and notes for Thursday, March 23rd, 2017
For the seventh time in a row, the Rangers dropped a game at Madison Square Garden, losing to the New York Islanders 3-2. With the loss, the team has extended it’s streak of losing the season series against the Islanders to three seasons, dating back to 2014-15. But now, the team will have a couple of days off to prepare for the annual California road trip, which begins Saturday night in Los Angeles. Here are today’s news and links:
Rangers News:
- Highlights: NYI 3, NYR 2 (4:21 Video via NHL.com)
- Game Recap: New York survived a late third period push from New York to leave New York with two points (CBS)
- Larry Brooks chatted with Rick Nash about expectations, and the standard Nash holds himself to (NY Post)
- Steve Zipay writes that Antti Raanta continues to prove himself as a capable goaltender in the absence of Henrik Lundqvist (Newsday)
- Scott Charles offers his thoughts on the Blueshirts 3-2 loss at the world’s most famous arena last night (Blueshirt Bulletin)
- Dave Shapiro believes that breaking up the line of Jimmy Vesey, Oscar Lindberg, and Pavel Buchnevich (which Alain Vigneault did last night) would be a bad idea (Blue Seat Blogs)
- Garrett Gartino embarks on the search for Ryan McDonagh’s ideal defensive partner (Blue Line Station)
- Postgame Notes: Rick Nash became the team’s fourth 20 goal scorer this season, joining Chris Kreider, J.T. Miller, and Michael Grabner (Official Team Site)
- Postgame Interviews: Antti Raanta,(2:08) Alain Vigneault,(2:16) Ryan McDonagh,(1:07) and Derek Stepan (2:04)/
Around the NHL:
- Sean McIndoe names the eleven most disappointing teams of the 2016-2017 season (Sportsnet)
- The Vegas Golden Knights plan on revealing their jersey design in June, as per team owner Bill Foley (NHL.com)
- In a shocking bit of news, NHL players around the league have come out to criticize the league’s well thought out and brilliantly executed playoff format (TSN)
- Rachel Doerrie attempts to redefine the impact of faceoff wins (Hockey Graphs)/