You make them pay.

Donald Brashear, that’s your job. Three times last night, and no one made them pay. If Brendan Shanahan was on this team, someone would have been forced to drop the gloves.

Outside of not sticking up for Henrik Lundqvist, probably the only person on the team that they cannot afford to get injured, this game was dominated by the Rangers. Even when they were bad in the second, they still were able to match Toronto’s output. The good teams in the league are the teams that can mask their mistakes, and this team does just that. There is a nice balance of the team bailing out Lundqvist when he lets in a softie, and Lundqvist bailing out the team when they fall asleep.

The Rangers have now won five games in a row, and sit at 5-1-0. Last season, when the Rangers were 5-1, we were waiting for them to come back down to Earth, and they did, hard. This time around, you aren’t really sure if they are going to come down as hard as they did last year. They beat three playoff teams in this five game win streak. They hustle, they work, they get balanced scoring, they get defensive scoring, good goaltending, good defense (even from Wade Redden), they hit, and they don’t take many stupid penalties. They kill penalties, and they convert on the power play and have good coaching.

Is this team this good? No, they are not going to keep playing at an .800 clip for 75 more games. They are going to come down to Earth, but they are making the so-called “experts” look really stupid.

The John Tortorella effect is becoming very obvious. That is now six straight games where the Rangers have absolutely dominated the third period. Last year, the Rangers had to fight to hold leads in the third, and this time around they are lighting the league up in the third. Conditioning, conditioning, conditioning.

When was the last time the Rangers scored seven goals? And thanks to all those that commented last night, the 75+ comments was a record here.

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