Tonight the Washington Capitals and New York Rangers will meet again at Madison Square Garden, with the Rangers holding a 2-1 lead, in their best-of-seven first-round playoff series. The Capitals will attempt to even the series behind the hot goaltending of twenty-year-old Simon Varlamov. If Varlamov can withstand the tactics of New York's agitator extraordinaire and anger management graduate, Sean Avery, the Capitals have a shot tonight.
Avery is more than a pest - the man is vermin. Avery is pestilence, he is Ebola on ice and there is no hockey shrink that can cure his ills. Avery will do everything in his evil bag of tricks to get under Varmalov's tender skin tonight at Madison Square Garden. The Rangers are a severely offensive-challenged team and they will need every edge they can get when it comes to unnerving Washington's young netminder. To be blunt, the Rangers can't score. Sean Avery is the edge. For New York Rangers fans, Sean Avery personifies the hope for a new tomorrow.
Rangers general manager Glen Sather has assembled a team that lacks offensive power. How can you assemble a team in today's NHL and not have a sniper on the squad? The game has changed, the power play is critical to a team's success and the Rangers suck Saskatchewan moose balls on the power play. The Rangers power play is impotent. (The fans in the blue seats should throw some Viagra on the ice when the power play unit skates out.) Scotty Gomez and Chris Drury are nice players, but neither one of them is a sniper.
Sather has done a lousy job as general manager of the Broadway Blueshirts. Have the Rangers ever been a legitimate Stanley Cup contender in the Sather era? The Rangers have one of the best goaltenders in the world, in Henrik Lundqvist, and without Lundqvist the Rangers would be worse than Wayne Gretzky's Phoenix Coyotes. (Have you noticed the alums of the Edmonton Oilers dynasty aren't experiencing a lot of feel good moments in the 2009 version of the NHL?) Sather is lucky the other tenant at Madison Square Garden is the New York Knicks, because Garden suits are distracted from the mess that masquerades as the New York Rangers.
The Capitals are the more talented team, but the Rangers possess one of the best goaltenders in the world. Tonight's game will be won or loss by New York's ability to play lockdown defense in front of King Henrik.
Ovechkin
Alexander Ovechkin is the best thing to happen to hockey in ten years. Ovechkin talks the talk and walks the walk. This is is the guy the NHL should be marketing as the savior of hockey. He is the supreme offensive talent in the game, he plays physical and his personality is as electric as his rushes up the ice.
Pleistocene era hockey analyst Don Cherry will never embrace Ovechkin because he's not from a hog farm in Manitoba, but Ovechkin is the future of hockey. Hockey purists want to blast Ovechkin for his trash-talking on the ice - weren't Larry Bird and Michael Jordan two of the greatest trash talkers in NBA history? Did Brett Favre talk a little smack?
Ovechkin brings color and panache to a game that is mired in anonymity. When did style and personality become hockey bugaboos? Ovechkin is a lightning rod on the ice - he is worth the price of admission which can be said about how many players? Would you rather watch Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin? Give me the Russian MiG flying up the ice every time.
Even with a missing front tooth, Ovechkin has game.
