Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden had all the looks of a typical let down game for the Rangers. And with me in attendance, sitting in section 421 of the blueseats with my buddy Steve, we were both quite sure that was exactly what was going to happen. After all, I did have an 0-2 record in the 2 previous games I had attended this season. And Steve, well..he just had a bad feeling.
But this Blueshirts team is clearly different at this juncture of the season, then the one I saw take on these exact same Florida Panthers back on January 25, the last game before the All Star break. This is a team, with not only a playoff berth in it's sights, but one that is playing it's best hockey since mid-January, and has no desire to go back to that team of almost 2 months ago. The one who's brutal February, almost knocked them out of the playoff race. And when Brandon Dubinsky scored the only goal in the Rangers 1-0 victory Tuesday night, it was quite possibly the loudest I've ever heard the Garden for a game. Maybe it was because it's late in the season, and the Boys in Blue are making a sudden surge up the standings, or maybe it was because it was just such a frustrating game at that point, that it was more out of relief from myself, Steve and the other 18,198 Ranger fans in attendance.
Whatever the case, the minute Dubinsky buried Ryan Callahan's nifty little feed to the low slot past Panthers goalie, Tomas Vokoun, the building absolutely erupted in jubilee. And even though there was still over 12 minutes left in the game, the mood went from waiting for that bad deflection goal that would have sent us all to the shut down escalators of the Garden in a really bad mood, to the countdown to Henrik's league leading 10th shutout of the season. And it sent us all into the streets of Manhattan joyfully chanting, "Let's Go Rangers!" as the Blueshirts won their season high 5th in a row, setting themselves up to take another huge step towards the 6th seed tonight, as they take on the Ottawa Senators at the same Madison Square Garden, minus the 2 of us, unfortunately.
With just 8 games remaining, and just 3 points separating them from the Montreal Canadiens, the Rangers brutal stretch of late January to early March appears to be behind them. But Ottawa is now playing the role of spoiler, and would love nothing more then to deal the Boys in Blue a setback, just like we were all fearing against the Panthers, Tuesday night. Hopefully, they will keep this mind when they take the ice at 7 pm tonight.
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