Rangers penguins takeaways
By: Dinner
Rangers Penguins Game 1 Takeaways 5/4
Nothing is worse than sitting through a triple OT playoff hockey game and it ending in a loss. The game lasted a total of four hours & 48 minutes and unfortunately I watched every second of it. I don’t even know where to begin with this game. But even though the Rangers lost there are a shit ton of positives that came out of game 1 and I honestly couldn’t be more excited for game 2.
Let’s start with the negative. First up, Panarin. The Breadman had one of those rare nights, where it seemed like he wasn’t even playing. The guy was absolutely locked the fuck up. Couldn’t generate any shooting opportunities, of the 16 shots generated by the line, only two were by Panarin. He obviously has the pass first mentality, but in the playoffs the Rangers are going to need him to be taking more shots.
Now let’s talk about the absolute bullshit no goal call. Every single Ranger fan believes that the goal should have counted and I’m still sick that it wasn’t. After about 15 minutes on Google I found Rule 69.1: “If an attacking player has been pushed, shoved, or fouled by a defending player so as to cause him to come into contact with the goalkeeper, such contact will not be deemed to be contact initiated by the attacking player for purposes of this rule, provided the attacking player has made a reasonable effort to avoid such contact.” Now with that being said I don’t know if the refs were watching the wrong game, had one too many drinks during intermission, or if one of those scumbag players in yellow and white tipped them off but it was so clear that kakko got pushed and couldn’t do anything about it. Absolutely nothing. I’m sick and honestly furious about the overruling and I fully believe that the league should take a look into the game being fixed.
Speaking of the game being fixed let’s not forget about the fact that the Rangers were called for four penalties while the Penguins took only one. The Jacob Trouba boarding penalty that gave Pittsburgh a two-man advantage was bullshit but whatever. I’m just confused on the fact that there were at least a dozen missed calls that could have been called that were comparable to what Trouba did that weren’t. Again that boarding call was a crucial call and was a game changer. I don’t actually think the game was fixed but the refs gotta call it both ways. Plain and simple.
Now enough of the negative I’m over it. Let’s get on with the good. First up Igor Shesterkin is an absolute stud between the pipes. The man put on a fucking show with 79 saves in his first playoff game. The second most saves in NHL history. We all knew shesty was that dude but like most fans, I questioned if his game would translate over to the playoffs and clearly he proved that he can hang. I pray the penguins take some extra shooting practice today because I know Igor isn’t going to be playing around in game 2.
Next up the kid line. The extremely inexperienced third line played well. Just like Igor I had no idea how Lafrenière & Kakko would translate over to the playoffs but like Igor they kept up with the experienced players. They played extremely physical, especially Alexis Lafrenière who had five hits. Kaapo Kakko made a fantastic play on the overturned goal (again we no longer care about the no call) passing the puck to Chytil while on his back. Can’t wait to see what these boys do in game 2.
All in all I can say that this game was good for the boys in blue. There hasn’t been a playoff game at the garden in 5 years so they were just dippin their toes into the playoff action in game 1. But a triple OT thriller is definitely one hell of an introduction to playoff hockey. The Rangers will come back hungry for game 2. My series prediction: Rangers in 6.
