Rangers Beat Flyers & Refs, Sit One More Win From Advancing
It wasn’t their prettiest game of the series, but the Blueshirts managed to handle the Flyers AND refs to take a 3-2 series lead yesterday. I’m not the guy to whine about officiating all the time, but stripes legitimately took a Marty St. Louis goal off the board where he couldn’t have been positioned any better to see the puck loose. He could learn a thing or two from the crew in the Dallas/Anaheim game last night. I also still have absolutely no idea why Kevin Klein got an unsportsmanlike for being a part of the tamest scrum of the afternoon. Whatever. A win makes it all irrelevant.
What’s not irrelevant is Steve Mason coming back down to Earth. He was shaky from the start – Staal’s tally to open the scoring was awful & bailed the Rangers out of a bad period. His teammates didn’t help him much either. 20 hits? Did Philly know it was Game 5? Milbury nailed it when he called the Flyers pussies. Why they decided to go away from their one advantage & continue to bang the Blueshirts around I have no idea – but the only reasons Sunday wasn’t a complete blowout were the officiating and Carl Hagelin. Clearly cranky Carl needs his beauty sleep – matinees are not for him.
How about Dom Moore? If you haven’t heard his story about taking a year off from hockey to be with his wife as she lost her fight with cancer, try and catch an E:60 replay. Impossible not to root for this guy. All heart and hustle. How he didn’t get the first star yesterday, I don’t know. A fourth-line center potting the unassisted game-winner, taking 6 of 7 faceoffs while the rest of his team got slaughtered & closing out the game in the final minute by winning a race to the puck should’ve been enough. I’m sure he’s OK with the W though. One more & it’s on to Round 2.
