Hudson River Rivalry Series Closer

Tomorrow is the beginning of the end for the 2009-10 regular season. The Devils will embark upon their final ten games, beginning with tonight’s against the Rangers. The Rags snapped a 3 game slide last night after dismantling the Islanders 5-0 ( five goals in a game from the Rangers? Wow). Hopefully, they used all of their goals up in one night and we won’t have to play all that hard tomorrow night.

Yea right, we all know every time these two play its a slug fest, its just the nature of the Hudson River Rivalry. The Rags crept to within five points of the last playoff spot (which belongs to Boston) but have one less game remaining to play than the Bruins. Which means they are going to be gunning for the win in this one, more than usual. They can not afford to come up shy in any games the rest of the way. They have 9 games remaining, however, 5 of those game are against non-playoff teams. Therefore, the Rangers know that a win against us will only help their case considering the talent level of the other teams they have left isn’t as good.

Regardless of who the Rangers have left to play or who is in front of them does not really matter, they have been as inconsistent as any team in the league, so I have no idea how the end of their season will shape out. I do, however, expect the game between them and the Devils to be its normal competitive, low scoring affair. In fact, in every meeting this year, only the last one (a 6-3 Devils win) had more than 6 combined goals. Is it a coincidence that the last one was the only meeting in which Kovy was apart of this year? Yes, it probably was, but he did have a great game against Columbus the other night and I would love for him to get in on the action of the rivalry this time around (he remained scoreless last time against the Rags).

I have stated that I fully expect the game to be competitive, I don’t expect the Rangers to be fatigued from their game last night. It is desperation time for them, so they will be bringing everything they have. So, lets get down to what needs to be done for New jersey to get the W and make their rivals journey that much more difficult. It gets very simple when playing the Rangers, apply pressure, fierce pressure. We have to get to Lundqvist early and often. Last game we chased him out of the crease – which was very uncharacteristic of him, he usually is a beast against the Devs – so if we can do that early on, we will be in good shape. Also, if we can get under their skin and play the rivalry card, we can get some power play chances and build on what we did on the power play last game. From a defensive stand point, it is also simple. We stop Gaborik we pretty much stop them. The Devils rank first in the league in defense and the Rags road scoring is 29th out of 30, so I can not see any scoring bursts from them on this night. Then again, you never know what can happen in this game.

I just hope we can get to Lundy early, create traffic in front and pound the puck in to get ahead. I would love nothing more at the closing of this regular season then for Jersey to get on a roll, as well as to make it harder for the Rangers to make the playoffs. GO DEVILS!