Different players, same idea.

Folks, I’m gonna be honest here: last night’s game was not an easy one to watch. In fact, I would even bet that the 13 combined points between the two teams will outscore quite a few NFL teams today (looking at you, my beloved Jets).

Since the game was, frankly, a tire fire, let’s go over some points and then jump to the most relevant and entertaining points that Twitter had for us in our time of need.

  • There were a few good points to take away from this game. For one, the power play continues to look good, converting on 2/3 attempts, and Mika Zibanejad continues to impress with his shot.
  • The penalty kill, however, was not great. The Rangers gave up 3 PPG on 6 penalties, and on the last one, Kevin Hayes was absolutely undressed. He looked like a kid in pee wee league.
  • Filip Chytil’s usage is not good. It’s totally fine for an 18-year-old to not quite be ready for the NHL, but to play 12:39 over two games is inexcusable. It’s not intelligent management of your team and it’s poor deployment. Send him to get some ice time elsewhere and don’t shorten your bench.
  • More on Chytil: the chart below shows his deployment last night, courtesy of @ryanohan. He played only 4:59 last night, a drop from his 7:40 in the season opener.

  • Additionally worrisome that Alain Vigneault’s idea of how to fix things is to break up the McDonagh-Shattenkirk top defensive pair after four periods and, instead, give Marc Staal top pair minutes. Let me explain here, friends: Staal is old, Staal is the slowest of the defensemen. Staal is not the answer.

Now that we’ve gone off the ledge here, the good news is that we’re only two games in to the season and, in 2013-14, the Rangers effectively had Marty Biron forced into retirement at this point, only to go on to the Stanley Cup Finals.

To Twitter!

First things first: Shayna puts all of my AV fears really eloquently in three tweets:

For those concerned about Hank – Dave is one of them, and Pat’s keeping receipts: 

On the new offsides challenge rules:

After that first, five goal period for the Leafs:

IF ONLY

Our optimistic (but, let’s face it, probably correct) fan base:

But to leave this with something optimistic:

Even if the Rangers are not, at least #RangersTwitter is in midseason form.

They’ll look to rebound tonight at the Garden against Original Six foe, Montreal. Stay off of ledges, fam.

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