Does he have a cool Spiderman helmet? Yes. Is he a nice guy? He sounds like one. Will he ever have a starting job in the National Hockey League? No. That's because when he puts on the pads and stands in Henrik's net, it's just hard to be confident in his ability to keep the biscuit out of the basket.
Nonetheless, Sean Avery was only half right when he called Valliquette "A minor leaguer". And that's because Valli is an OK backup goalie.
Sam Rosen and Joe Mica-not-JD-letti like to praise the lanky backstop a little more. They will repeat the refrain about how he "comes up big when his number is called" until we all believe that #40 stole one for the good guys.
Unfortunately, that's not the WHOLE story.
Something happens to a team when they are a little less confident about the guy standing between the pipes. Forwards backcheck a little harder. Defensemen make the simple chips off the boards and out of the zone. Everybody has their head on a swivel inside their blueline.
In fact, the Rangers downright collapse all 5 skaters below the top of the circles.
How many breakaways/2-on-1s did you witness coming in on Stevie V tonight? Yeah. I didn't see one either.
This is because when the Rangers don't have the league's best goalie guarding their net, they have to be a little more careful and conservative about getting caught deep in the O-zone, and about their positioning up and down the entire rink.
When The King is in net, we see these mental and positional breakdowns time and time again. In some games the Swede may face 3 or 4 clean breakaways in regulation time.
But not Valli.
What you will see coming in on Valiquette are long slap shots from the points- now open due to New York's defensive zone, slot covering, collapse strategy. When these shots came roaring through off the sticks of Joe Corvo and Joni Pitkanen, Spiderman was there to repel the puck. In fact, there were a number of very impressive saves off of deflections from the sticks of Hurricane forwards.
Valliquette played a pretty good game. But the Rangers, defensively, were (for the most part) stifling the Carolina attack, keeping them to the outside of the dots along the boards. So we'll tip our cap to Valli for now, but I'll stop short of calling him Mike Richter. Or Mike Dunham. Or Glen Healy.
Lets just say I wouldn't want to have to put the season on the guy's shoulders.
GAME NOTES
- The Rangers first line of Naslund-Gomez-Callahan looked.. well... like a first line. This trio was flying all game long, skating dominant shift after dominant shift. All 3 forwards had their legs tonight.
- Nik Zherdev hasn't scored in 13 games now, but I'm still crushing. He's still skating hard, dangling out of his mind, and dishing the pill off exceptionally well on his way to racking up more assists. The goals will come Nicky. Just keep working.
- New York's powerplay looked IMPRESSIVE! This isn't even a typo! In fact, the PP has looked quite sharp for the last 4 or 5 games in a row now. Good player movement with the man advantage + quick, smart decisions with the puck = chances. Chances turn into goals. Goals turn into me being happy. Me being happy turns into everybody else being happy.
- Sam had an interesting point when he mentioned that Blair Betts and Fredrik Sjostrom may be the greatest Penalty Killing pair in NYR history. Can you think of a better unit??
- Lauri Korpikoski played a smart, responsible, and impressive game. This kid could be a future Selke trophy(Best Defensive Forward) winner. Let's just hope the offensive side of his game starts to show some consistency.
- The Staals are barely 20 and I'm already sick of their rivalries. All 4 of them. And the one isn't even in the league yet.
- That being said, Marc may very well be the best of the bunch. What a stud we have on our blueline. He's already such a calming force back there.
- Back to Gomez for a second... Did anybody else see the Alaska native throwing the body around out there tonight? He actually did a little bit of everything on the ice in this game. Now, as is always the case with Gomer, we would just like to see some consistency.
- 3 Goals in 6 games for Brandon Dubinsky after a long, ugly drought. Looks like he may be building some confidence again. He has been reunited with his Playstation linemates of Nikolai Zherdev and a recently re-installed and semi-effective Aaron Voros.
3 Stars Of The Game
3) Lauri Korpikoski- 1g- The Korpedo played an immensely disciplined defensive game tonight, and was rewarded with some late ice time. The main reason I have him as the 3rd star is because his goal came as the result of pure hustle and going to the net hard after a shot on goal. That's what I like to see.
2) Stephen Valliquette- 33 saves, W- I know I kinda ripped on Valli in my earlier rant, but the guy played a strong game. He doesn't face the quality of shots that Hank does, but he did what he needed to do to get the W and that's what matters. I'm trying not to be contradictory here.
1) Scott Gomez- 1g, 1a- So at least we know he hasn't completely lost all of his skill and desire. Apparently Gomer spent his entire All-Star break at the Rangers training facility preparing for the 2nd half of the season. His work paid off today. Deserving of a mention are his linemates- Markus Naslund and Ryan Callahan. All 3 were great but Gomez was the best player on the ice tonight.
NOTES:
--> Dan Fritsche was placed on waivers earlier today. I don't have too much of an opinion on the youngster, but there was clearly no place for him on this roster. Still, don't completely bash this move by Slater, because he arrived in the same deal that brought us Nikolai Zherdev. The interesting part of this is that Fritsche's contract will not be the one that opens the cap space for Slats to wheel and deal.
--> Cindy Crosby IS expected to play tomorrow night against the Rangers. (menstrual cycle/knee).
-Rif
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