Life At The Top

Rangers players help Preds backup goalie Chris Mason find his contact lens.

(Or maybe they're looking for the Islanders, way down there in the standings somewhere?)

- Don't look now, but the Rangers now share the top spot in the NHL with Ottawa, and who cares, really, if the Sens have played six less games? Let's see how well they do when their strings of four games in six days start to pile up.

- If you took my advice and took the loved one out to dinner, you missed the team's most complete performance of the season. As bad as the power play has been, that's how outstanding the penalty killing is; and just as the power play cost the Blueshirts the point in Chicago, the PK set the tone with their first period kills. Jed Ortmeyer was an inspiration to the team, and to us all, hanging in there after taking a Zedlicky slap shot right over the knee, and diving to block a shot shortly after. No way they could lose after that display!

I also said in the same misguided post that the game wasn't really that important because the loss that I was admittedly anticipating (still a habit after seven years) would be neutralized by a win in St. Louis on Saturday. Now, that game becomes a huge one (they all seem bigger as the record gets better), as a loss against the woeful Blues would greatly diminish what they accomplished in Nashville. So don't make any plans. That's right - you're spending your Saturday night at home, fuck the loved one.

- The one depressing note about the game to me was the apparently significant injury to the Preds' David Legwand. Coming on a totally innocent collision with Blair Betts, it served as a reminder of the fragile nature of a team's success, and how quickly and unexpectedly disaster can strike. And I'm not going to say another word.