New York Rangers: A Good Start to the Regular Season

The New York Rangers defeated the New York Islanders in their season opener by a score of 5-3.

That was a very fun game to watch. The New York Rangers carried much of the play through the first two periods. The start of the third period was very scary, as the Islanders scored a couple in the first few minutes, but the Rangers battled back to put an end to the comeback.

How much did the beginning of the third period feel like a replay of a 2015-2016 Rangers game? The Rangers took the lead into the third only to have it squandered within four minutes. At that point, I thought it was all going downhill from there.

• How about that Powerplay? The Rangers went 1-5 with the man advantage tonight, but man, did they ever look good? I haven’t seen a Rangers powerplay move the puck so effortlessly in a long, long time. It was extremely refreshing to see.
• Brandon Pirri showed the coaching staff why he should be kept in the lineup on a regular basis. He scored a goal on the powerplay, almost had another goal in the first period if it wasn’t for him hitting the crossbar, and he also had an assist on the team’s first goal of the night.

• Speaking of which, what a game by the fourth line. I think I could pretty much wrap this bullet point up with this tweet I made after Michael Grabner scored to make it 1-0…

• Now onto some of the negatives…
• I didn’t think Henrik Lundqvist played a particularly great game. He didn’t look right to me tonight for some reason. The one thing I did notice was, while Hank usually loses sight of where the puck is a few times in just about every game, tonight it was much worse than usual.
• Even though Marc Staal was on the ice for a few goals against, I actually thought he had a decent game. The one thing that he did that I absolutely loved was that he cleared the crease whenever an Islander crowded it, especially early on in the 1st period. It took 11 years for him to learn how to do that, but better late than never I suppose…
• From one wonder twin to another, I thought Girardi was having a solid game as well. Then this happened…

• Also, Nick Holden, although he was second amongst Rangers defenseman in ice time (21:59) I thought he had a pretty rough game. What exactly was he doing on Brock Nelson‘s late 3rd-period goal? More importantly, what did he think he was doing?
• All in all, a solid game for the Rangers. The Rangers were pretty much what we all expect them to be this year; a team that can score with the best of them but also going to make a lot of defensive mistakes that will end up in the back of the net. I didn’t mind what I saw tonight. Hopefully, they play the same way (offensively) against the Blues Saturday night.

Next: Rangers games you can't miss in 2016

Blue Line Station 3 Stars of the Game

• 1st Star- Chris Kreider, 1 goal, 1 assist
• 2nd Star- Brandon Pirri, 1 goal, 1 assist, crossbar
• 3rd Star- Pavel Buchnevich, first NHL assist.