Perry Nelson-Imagn Images [https://deweb-519a7.b-cdn.net/post-images/f806c1f9-033a-4850-a61d-2b5acbd047a7.jpeg] Perry Nelson-Imagn Images The Rangers [https://thehockeynews.com/nhl/new-york-rangers] were there, all right, at Rogers Place in Edmonton. But for all the good, they came away with ZIP and a ton of talk about how wonderful they are; we'll see in Calgary. They lost despite the fact that the Blueshirts were gifted with The Maven's "Battle Plan To Demobilze Connor McDavid." I suggested that either Will Cuylle or Tye Kartye follow McD around the pond whenever the NHL's leading scorer appeared. The hounding would drive King Connor bonkers and the Breezin' Blueshirts would head to Calgary with two points in their pocket instead of air. And it could have worked had Dylan Garand minded his own business and stopped doubling as a defenseman. He failed miserably by literally handing McDavid his only goal of the game. Alas, based on the 3-1 loss, there's no point in beating around the bush, the culprit was – and still is; at least until Calgary – Garand's stick which could have used a radar implant. No way; absolutely NO WAY that King McDavid would have opened the scoring had the Ranger goalie not badly botched who knows what he wanted to do. The last player in the world you'd want to hand a gift puck was McDavid. Yeah, I'm a Garand fan and he'll be fine for the rest of the season but he had better wise up when it comes to easy plays that turn into a team disaster. Mind you, the loss also was the fault of Braden (When Is He Going To Learn?) Schneider who botched up his defensive work on the winning goal. You had to laugh – okay, a mild chuckle will do in this case – at Sully's post-gamer, "Give their goalie (Devon Levi) credit." Fair enough, but the punch line should have been, "And give our goalie nothing, because he gave McDavid a free goal." But Garand and Schneider have to share their prizes with a couple of other overpriced disappearing acts. 1. Mika Zibanejad is suffering a brutal autumn. He did his club a favor last night by totaling one shot on goal = whole game.`Over 19 games he's scored one even strength goal. (He's a number one center like I'm Tom Hanks.) 2. Then we have the troubadour from Vegas, Moneybags Dorofeyev, whose plus-minus record now is MINUS-18 over 19 games. Ah, but there's also good news from The Maven. The Beloved Blueshirsts are 10-8-1 and – next up – should topple Calgary and then ever-vanquished Vancouver, the poor man's Brooklyn Americans. The bad news is that what could have been a four-for four road-row, now should be two-for-two with Stay-In-The-Damn-Crease Garand rebounding in Calgary and Joony-in-January Korpisalo knocking off Vancouver.
