NEW YORK, NY – It’s a spectacle every year and this year will be no different. The Big Game is here. I’m talking, of course, about the Rangers’ game against the Calgary Flames at the Garden this Sunday.
The Rangers are coming off of a rough stretch of games. After getting busted up by the Broad Street Bullies at the Garden before the All-Star break, they seemingly played with a cardboard cutout of Jose “Red Light” Theodore in net against the Blue Jackets immediately after the break. They gave up six goals in an ugly game in which the Rangers didn’t start playing until the third period.
Last night the Rangers found the sledding tough in Buffalo. It took eighteen minutes to find the breakthrough and it took a missile from McDonagh to put the Rangers on the board. Lundqvist played a great game but was finally beaten with just over five minutes left in the third period. The Rangers ended up winning on a Kreider goal in overtime and earning an important two points. The Rangers are trying to keep pace with the Penguins in third place in the Metropolitan Division and stay ahead of a resurgent Flyers squad. The Blueshirts are five points ahead of Philthy Philly with two games in hand.
The Rangers’ home form has been suspect of late. They have only won one of their last six games on home ice dating back to the beginning of January. The GardenFaithful are getting (more) restless. They’ll need to find their home form if they are going to make any kind of push in the playoffs. They’re mostly healthy, Kevin Hayes is the only notable absentee at the moment, so they should start to pick up steam heading toward the end of the season. But this is the Rangers, so we’ll see.
Now onto the other Big Game this Sunday. Brady and Belichick are looking to win one for the thumb, while Matt Ryan and Julio Jones are looking to spoil the (tea) party in Boston (see what i did there?). I don’t think this game will be that close. The Pats aren’t playing the Giants, so Belichick will have free reign to cheat his way to another Super Bowl victory. I hope I’m wrong, but this is going to be a boring game and the Pats will win going away. The good thing about that is that the 39-year old Tom Brady might finally retire so we don’t have to see him anymore. But he’s still good so I could see him playing another year as a victory lap/ farewell tour. I hope you got some good numbers in your Super Bowl boxes. That’s the main reason I’ll be watching. At least there’s baseball on the horizon.
We’re less than two weeks away from Pitchers and Catchers report and we finally have baseball again. The Mets and their faithful will be happy that Matz should be ready for Spring Training. The Yankees have their Baby Bombers to look forward to. It should be fun until late May when both teams are effectively out of the running for the playoffs.
That’s it for me. Come back tomorrow for the smooth stylings of Junoir Blaber or… Grinding Ax Walter Hynes??? Stay tuned.
