Broken Mirror, Broken Record

April 29th, 2006

When Marcel Hossa's apparent goal four minutes into Game 4 was disallowed because a penalty was called on Hossa on the play, the gentleman to my left said, "I'll bet you $10 right now the Devils score on the power play." That's how bad was the Rangers' luck was -- he was sure of his bet, and so was I, which is why I would never have taken it. The Rangers had already lost Jaromir Jagr for the remainder of the game in the opening minute when a Brad Lukowich check sent him into the board with his dislocated left shoulder leading. They now lost an apparent lead and had to face the Devils' lethal power play.

Well, they survived that power play, and (as they have for long stretches of the series) outworked and outplayed the Devils for the rest of the period, and were finally rewarded when Jed Ortmeyer banged home his own rebound from a sharp angle with 18 seconds left in the stanza to give the Rangers their first lead of the series, their first lead in six games.

But their bad luck had not yet run out. They continued to outplay the Devils in the second period and were on the power play when things started to unravel again. The first problem was that they were working with only a minor -- for the second straight game, Erik Rasmussen was assessed only that much for viciously boarding Ryan Hollweg from behind, penalties that deserved at least double minors, or more appropriately majors. Then they got caught with too many men on the ice. This wasn't a marginal call -- there were six guys on the ice for quite a while, passing the puck around, before one of the referees noticed. So of course, seconds after Rasmussen's single minor expired, Scott Gomez fired a shot off the cross-bar and into the net to tie the game.

To describe what happened after that is to sound like a broken record, repeating everything that went wrong in the first three games -- another Devil power play, another Devil power play goal scored with apparent ease on a Patrick Elias deflection, and the Rangers were behind, facing the prospect of the Devils' stifling trap for the rest of the game; another Ranger power play, another shorthanded goal, Petr Sykora telegraphing a pass across the ice onto the stick of Brian Gionta for a two on one against Tom Poti, and you know what happens when the Devils have a two on one against Tom Poti; and then Blair Betts cross-bar and Hossa goal post seconds apart. Like I said, broken record. One more goal for good measure from Elias after dancing around the fast-fading Fedor Tyutin, and that was all she wrote, even though the Rangers played hard the rest of the way.

That's all for now -- more tomorrow on the Rangers' reactions after the game.

Entry Filed under: Hockey