Flame Out

New faces Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust made their presence known last night in their Ranger debuts. Unfortunately, the result was an all too familiar one.

There wasn’t much difference between the two teams last night as both found quality scoring chances few and far between. But in the end, it was a coaching mistake and the inability to score(surprise surprise), as the Kings held on to defeat New York 2-1.

Olli Jokinen did manage to get four shots on goal last night, almost scoring on one early in the second. He mostly centered the top unit, between Vinny Prospal and lone goal scorer of the evening, Marian Gaborik.

The biggest impact he made though was on the shorthanded goal by Anze Kopitar, that gave the Kings the first lead.

Head coach John Tortorella decided to put five forwards on the power play, when the game was still scoreless. That decision was due to an earlier Michael Del Zotto tripping minor that sent him to the box. Simultaneously, the Kings took a penalty for shooting the puck into the stands, thus setting up this questionable decision to not have one single defenseman on the unit of five.

When Anze Kopitar had a two-on-one, with Jokinen being the only player back, he was aware of the situation and took it to the net. Jokinen, no sure what to do, left Kopitar all alone and the young Slovenian beat Lundqvist, who was back in the line-up after battling a stomach flu, high glove side.

Wasn’t it recently Groundhog’s Day?

With the game still very much in doubt throughout the third, the Rangers manufactured little as far as high quality scoring chances are concerned. But that wasn’t new, both teams found it hard to get a consistent amount of pressure going against each other.

Ryan Smyth increased the lead midway through the final period, finishing off a nice feed, thus making it almost impossible for the Rangers to salvage a point or two out this game.

The Blueshirts didn’t go down without a fight though. Marian Gaborik, once again carrying this anemic offense on his back, scored his fifth goal in three games, off a brilliant feed from Erik Christensen, with just a little over three minutes to go, to cut the lead in half.

That would be the closest they would come, although there were a few chances to tie it, especially a redirected Prospal shot by Ryan Calllahan with just 11.4 seconds to go.

Try as they might, even with what many think is a better line-up today than it was just a few days ago, the scoring woes still remain.

Brandon Prust was active, throwing his weight, fists and ability around. He took a borderline boarding call early in the first, fought and received a bogus instigator call in the second and almost scored a goal in the third when his shot beat Quick and ticked off the post.

All in all, the two newcomers look like they are going to be welcomed additions to a team looking for a spark.

Let’s just hope those sparks don’t go up in Flames.