Saturday October 17, 2009 6:22 PM By Steve Zipay
It’s 1990s Night here at the ACC. So far, waiting for warmups. I’ve heard “Comfortably Numb”, “Brown Sugar”, "Love Lies Bleeding" and watched some clips from the Leafs 92-93 season. Not too shabby. But are any of those tunes from the 90s?
This from a wary John Tortorella:
"You chip down a little bit in this league and people are gonna come and get you. It’s how you handle success. And that’s a key thing. We’re just starting this season. I’m not sure how we’re gonna react to all this stuff. We still have to work at it.... Sometimes you just lose a little bit of that edge and it can snowball on you. So that’s what we try to guard against. ....We know what’s gone on around them (the Leafs) and they’re going to be a very difficult team to play tonight, so we know that, our players are smart enough to know that."
Some numbers.
Marian Gaborik (6-4-10) scored and had an assist in the 7-2 battering of the Leafs at the Garden five days ago and has a point in seven straight games. Dave Creighton opened the 1955-56 season with eight points, which is the record for a 1st year Ranger. Rod Gilbert recorded a point in the first 14 games in 1972-73.
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Chris Drury, who will play the 800th game in his career against San Jose Monday, has 14 goals in 36 career games against the Leafs… Wade Redden, the former Senator, has 42 points in 59 career games against Toronto…Tomas Kaberle leads all Leafs in career points against the Rangers with 28.
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Leafs won both games here in 2008-09 and three of the four games were decided by a goal, two in the shootout and one in overtime. But these are different teams.
Joey MacDonald has played 67 career games with a 3.33 GAA. This is his second start of the season, he surrendered four goals on Oct. 13 against Colorado. The Rangers power play ranks 10th at a 26.5 rate (9-34); the team is eighth at 86.1 percent on the PK and scored two shorthanded goals.
Join in here as the game unfolds and follow me on twitter.com/stevezipay
FIRST PERIOD
Starters: Same five skaters for third consecutive game: Redden, Gilroy, Gaborik, Prospal, Dubinsky. Redden-Gilroy have staretd four straight.
Leafs: Komisarek, Kaberle, Mitchell, Wallin, Stempniak
As reported: Lundqvist-MacDonald
Among the honorees introduced: Felix Potvin, Bill Berg, Mark Osborne.
With 13:04 left, Dubinsky whistled for interference on John Mitchell, who was trying to chase the puck along the boards in the Rangers zone. PP Leafs. Shots, 4-2 Rangers.
First Rangers PP, Blake goes in for slashing 11:28
Dubinsky scores with four minutes left on 4-on-4. coming down right side and banking one off near post and past MacDonald.
END OF FIRST, RANGERS 1-0
Goals by Staal and Del Zotto give Rangers 3-0 lead. Ian White answers after Lundqvist stops three close-in chances. Rangers being outshot 25-19, but seems like a larger margin. Lundqvist and MacDonald traded superb glove saves: Lundqvist knocks away a deflection on a rush by Viktor Stalberg; MacDonald robs Gaborik with 5:19 left. If the Leafs had a better power play, this would be closer.
END OF SECOND, RANGERS 3-1
Enver Lisin's score at 2:26 starts the booing from the rafters. That makes it 4-1 and that's really all she wrote, folks. The Leafs hustled, but the Rangers countered. If they had a good power play (0-for-6), this might have been closer. The Rangers were 1-for-4 on their ops. 34 saves for Henrik. 30 hits for the rangers to 17 for Leafs, 15 giveaways for Leafs, seven for Blueshirts. And the faceoffs? 61 percent to 39 percent, Rangers.
FINAL, RANGERS 4, LEAFS 1
Tags:
Marian Gaborik, Chris Drury, Wade Redden, John Tortorella