Original Six, Original Hunger: Game Preview 3-16-10

(Hmm. Taken by yours truly last week)

Concistency, certainly win streaks, are difficult to come by when you're these two teams. There's almost a giddiness you can attach to the feeling when you're in one, in addition to the obvious need to keep it going for the sake of post-season action. The Habs haven't lost since San Jose 5 games ago and the Rangers are in search of a third straight addition to the W column.

The Habs are instilling confidence in their fans in their push for the playoffs (it seems the more I try to be a cynic, the more it works in their favour, so there's a new approach. How about this sentence now:) However, Tomas Plekanec despite his practicing this morning remains doubtful for tonight's game.

Our starting goaltender for the evening, Jaroslav Halak, maintains one thing : “It’s a team game.” AKA no matter who is or isn't playing, let's have at it, shall we? It's brought us good things so far.

"I am a Ranger" sounds a bit too much like "Nous sommes Canadiens," I realized upon my visit to MSG

• King Henrik Lundqvist is King against the Canadiens, apparently. Interesting fact pulled from Yahoo!Sports: "[he] went 6-1-0 with a 1.86 GAA and a shutout in his last seven home starts versus Montreal." Uh. Those are some numbers.


• Sean Avery, wouldn't you know it, is +10 in 13 games against Montreal. When he's on the ice, you know stuff happens.


• Marian Gaborik, Olli Jokinen, Vaclav Prospal (and all that jazz), you know, the petulent goal scorers that seem to wait for me to be watching a game before lighting up the lamp and celebrating in the most annoying fashion.


• Brandon Dubinsky too, with his 8 points in 11 games against the Habs.


• Another Brandon (Prust, you knew it was coming) is reaching all-time highs in ice time and not fighting so much. "So what?" you say. There's a reason Calgary's repatriated him every chance they got (and it wouldn't surprise me if they tried again after this season). In addition to his team toughness (and the Rangers already have a lot of that, I didn't mention Jody Shelley yet but there he is) he's got undervalued hockey smarts.