Rangers Vs. Blue Jackets: Stepan Up
Notes from the Rangers win over the Blue Jackets.
- I missed the entire game last night. Every single minute. Made an unexpected trip to the emergency room with the wife (everything is fine) and both of our phones were dying so I needed to boot up twitter on an old ipod touch and follow the game that way. I watched brief highlights of the final two goals when I got home and that was about it.
- So why am I doing notes? Because the people demand them! When I don't do notes the next day it's like the sun has gotten too close to the surface; people are rioting in the streets and looters are everywhere. So to avoid that, I'm going to do a collection of thoughts of things I know.
- First of all, a giant congratulations to Cam Talbot for locking up the Steven McDonald Extra Effort Award. It's a very deserved accomplishment for a guy who carried this team when Henrik Lundqvist went down with an injury. Aside from him most likely being traded to a team for a starting gig next year; that's a really nice way to honor what he did during that spell.
- My other (personal) options for the award would have been Rick Nash, Dominic Moore and Kevin Hayes in that order. I'm not saying any of them were more worthy than Talbot, but there were a lot of great options this year.
- Now the Rangers are a single point away from locking up the East. That's a big deal and while it feels like a formality at this point it's not sewn up yet so these two points were enormous. And to win like that? To continue being this team that finds a way to win games? Nothing but good things can come from that.
- Derek Stepan scoring the game-tying goal and then scoring the game-winning goal? So, so awesome.
- Keith Yandle made a great play on the game-tying goal (doesn't get an assist) and then set up Stepan for the game-winning goal (did get an assist) so I guess today he's not a failure. Adam tackled this here.
- Hayes notched an assist and reached the 40-point plateau as a rookie playing in an off position. Seriously, that kid is something special already. Imagine what he's going to be.
- Speaking of special, J.T. Miller with another assist.
Aaaaand that's about all I know about the game. Amazing I have a blog, right?
Thoughts?
