I've got the plate

for Scott's piece of humble pie.

Rangers 4, 'Canes 0

At least the Rangers could claim in losing 2-1 to 'Canes last week that it was back half of back-to-back games. What is the 'Canes excuse for last night's pathetic performance?

Rangers just seemed to dominate. There didn't seem to be much hitting by either team (big disadvantage for 'Canes; since Rangers do not have physical defense, they actually can be disrupted with physical play)

I watched most of the game, and of what I've seen this year, it was the Rangers best effort. Solid skating through all 3 periods, with no let-up. Both of their first two lines dominated the top lines of the 'Canes. And Lundquist clearly was the better goalie over Ward.

There actually are a lot of similarities between these goalies in that both were celebrated rookies last year. The difference is that Lundquist played the whole season as Rangers regular goalie last year and so acquired the experience that helps him through tough stretches. Ward is now finding out what it means to be a full-time goalie in 80-game season and may not be quite as ready. If I were the Laviolette, I'd be spelling Ward much more, giving Grahame, their backup, a good 30 games during the year. That's exactly what Rangers coach Tom Renney is doing this year, giving Kevin Weeks a good number of games. A lot of teams in the past 10 to 20 years have gone to a dominant #1 goalie for like 95 percent of their games, a la Martin Brodeur and Dominik Hasek and Patrick Roy. But I believe with young goalies, you need to spell them more in the first year or two. As good as Buffalo is right now, watch out for Ryan Miller later in the season if he plays too many games. I think they were actually fortunate that he missed a few games with injury.

Meanwhile, it sure is fun to watch these great young goalies come of age with their teams. This is the next generation, as opposed to, say teams that still depend on old warhorses like Hasek or Osgood. Sorry, Scott, couldn't resist.

Hurricanes 2, Rangers 1

I was able to watch good portions of last night's game, which featured my favorite team, The Rangers, and my adopted team, the Hurricanes. I didn't really take much from it, though.

I thought the teams were fairly evenly matched, but a couple of factors weighed in. The Rangers are an older team, and were playing the second game of a back-to-back, which always means a struggle. And they wound up losing.

The 'Canes, on the other hand, managed to accomplish something they needed to and which they did brilliantly last year: Find a way to win a game they should win, especially at home.

The winning goal was the result of aggressiveness after a faceoff in the offensive end and they outhustled the Rangers to a loose puck, managing to get a centering pass to Rod Brind'amour, who made no mistakes from 10 feet out in the slot.

A strong hockey game, well-played defensively by the 'Canes, especially in the 3rd period.

Bad teams

I caught Flyers-Islanders last night. The Flyers are truly a bad team. The question is, how did they get so poor, so quickly? They were a playoff team last year.

But they are a walking example of what you can't be in the new NHL. Big, slow and especially slow around the net in front of their goalie. And their goalies aren't great.

With the NHL featuring a lot of speed and a lot less grabbing (or more power plays if you do grab), teams that are slower better have 2 things: strong defense in front of the goalie and a good goalie.

It's not hard to predict that the Flyers aren't going to be playing in May. I'm not sure the Islanders are, either. They looked OK, but their goalie, Rick DiPietro, even though he only gave up one goal, is shaky. You can just tell.