Game Preview: Rangers v. Shaaaaarks

Posted by Rory on 10/19/09 • Categorized as Game Previews,NHL,New York Rangers

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The Rangers are at home tonight to take on the San Jose Sharks. The puck drops at 7pm and can be seen nationally on Versus. Unless you have DirecTV, in which case, ummmmm, sorry.

In case you’re wondering what the multiple A’s in the title refers to, I give you this:

im_a_shark

Hope that clears it up. Anyway, tonight has plenty of story lines going on:

East vs. West - The Sharks tore up the Western Conference as well as pretty much the whole league last season, taking the President’s Trophy before choking like vegetarians at a wing joint falling to the Anaheim Ducks in the first round of the playoffs. Our Rangers are currently tearing up the Eastern Conference like the bad-ass mofo’s they are. Tonight should be good.

Gabby vs. Heater - We now have Marian Gaborik, who has been a bad-ass among bad-asses in terms of scoring wicked, unbelievable goals that make me feel tingly in my no-no place. Dan(n)y Heatly(seriously dude, there should be a second ‘n’ in your name. You’re not foreign, there’s no excuse) is now a shark, and has brought his scoring touch with him from the land of the suckage Ottawa. Tonight should be good.

Lundqvist vs. Nabokov - Two league-elite goalies, both of whom have been Vezina finalists in recent memory (both being beaten a couple of years ago by Roseanne Barr Peter Griffin Fatface Bro-diver even though his stats were worse than theirs. But oh well, he probably threatened to eat one of the GM’s children if they didn’t vote for him, thus he won). The man from the land of ABBA versus the man from the land of Borat – bigoted stereotypes abound! Tonight should be good. (Well if would have been, but it turns out Vally’s playing tonight. My bad)

Does the Rangers winning streak end at seven? Does it get stretched to eight? Do the headline writers at the Rangers website get to come up with more puns in which they rhyme words with the number of games the Rangers winning streak coincides with?

We will know soon. Soon, my children.

Numbers breakdown:

Sharks record: 4-3-1 – 4-3-1 in their last 10 - 2-3-0 on the road

Rangers record: 7-1-0 – 7-1-0 in their last 10 - 4-0-0 at home

Average goals scored in a game:

Sharks: 3.12

Rangers: 4.00

Average goals allowed in a game:

Sharks:2.75

Rangers: 1.88

Power Play

Sharks: 26.5%

Rangers: 26.3%

Penalty Kill:

Sharks: 81.6%

Rangers: 88.1%

Stats from NHL.com

About the author: Rory is a recent college graduate from central New Jersey majoring in History and PR. A Ranger fan all her life, the bane of her existence is the New Jersey Devils, and she harbors a severe hatred for Martin Brodeur. Her favorite current Rangers are Henrik Lundqvist, Sean Avery, and Steve Valiquette, and her favorite all-time Rangers are Mike Richter and Jeff Beukeboom.