Trying to think where we would be without the steady Swede in net may cause any Ranger fan this season a potential brain aneurism. Lundqvist's shear refusal to let more than 2 goals past him in any given game has given the Rangers a window of opportunity and has set the table for two back to back third period comebacks.

Lundqvist kept the hatches sealed against a surging red hot Bruins team on Saturday. Where the Rangers' offense, namely the powerplay floundered with a TUMS popping 0 for 6 performance. I was sitting dining with the other two Gallof boys at a Cajun restaurant called The Bayou in Bellmore. If I ducked my head down so I could see under the hanging Mardi Gras beads and other decorations I could watch the game from the flat screen TV that was in the bar area.

As I shoved stuffed parmesan encrusted crab-meat stuffed mushrooms in my mouth, I saw the Rangers were on the powerplay. I stared in horror as Rozsival bobbled the puck on the blueline like it was a live hand grenade and coughed up the puck. Then I almost choked on an oyster when the Bruins scored the shorthanded goal just seconds later. I sighed to myself in mild disgust and figured well "you can't win em' all..."

The Rangers were still trailing 2-0 when we left the restaurant. I didn't want to miss the third period, but I knew I had the game DVRing back at home… we were headed to where my friend was hosting the UFC Pay Per View on his quadrillion inch plasma screen.

We still had time until the 10 o'clock start time of the PPV, but when we arrived my friend was watching King Arthur on blue ray. I wrestled to contain myself to demanding he shut that rubbish off and put on the game, but I was already conceding in my head that this was going to be one for the loss column.

Finally he shut the movie off so he could order the PPV and I knew here was my chance to at least catch the tail end of the loss. I shouted between Pringle chews as crumbs and spittle flew out of my mouth, "The Rangers' game!! Flip to the score!!!" As he finally flipped over to MSG channel and the TV flickered to the view of that pearly white Garden ice, the first thing I was able to see in crystal clear 1080p was Markus Naslund putting the puck past Tim Thomas with 53 seconds left on the clock. I looked for the score… 2-2, my god they did it again. After a high drama, chalk-full of video replays shootout, it was the Rangers skating to center ice raising their sticks and just in time to flip over to the start of the UFC PPV.

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Which brings us to last night; the Rangers once again found themselves trailing on the scoreboard while heading into the third period. This time they were only down by a goal and Henrik Lundqvist was playing superb. The Rangers were only being slightly out shot but had their physical game firing on all cylinders. However, the Rangers were not able to sustain pressure in the offensive zone for any good length of time and the Senators were doing a savvy job of blocking shots to the net.

There also seemed to be drama on the bench as both Zherdev and Voros were sitting idle throughout most of the third period. Instead, Renney was shuffling everything else around, even putting Colton Orr out on the powerplay. Renney lamented in the post game he was just going by gut instinct, but he was displeased with both Zherdev and Voros' effort. Though, from watching the game I am really confused to why. I could think of a few other players that might have earned a benching rather than Zherdev or Voros from recent play, but since they only have 6 defensemen on the roster that wouldn't work, now would it.

Getting back to the game… could lightning strike twice for the Rangers in the third? I guess so... after a mad scramble in front of the net, this time it was Fredrick Sjostrom who got the puck past Alex Auld to tie the game. Another game destined for a shootout, where Lundqvist, who is just oozing with confidence right now, is most comfortable.

He denied all three Ottawa shooters with patience and precision calculation. There was some controversy on Jarkko Ruutu's shootout attempt. Ruutu skated in and completely whiffed on his shot. He moved away with the puck then shot it at Lundqvist after the fact, which is a big no-no. Lundqvist casually blocked it with the waffle and didn't seem to give it a half second of thought, but the Rangers' bench, especially one Colton Orr was irate. Thus giving us an interesting story line for Saturday's game in Ottawa along with Wade Redden's first official homecoming.

Nikolai Zherdev scored the one only goal in the shootout and despite the benching he was named the game's second star.

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Henrik Lundqvist is currently ranked 3rd in the league overall with his stellar 1.92 GAA and leads the league in wins. Tomorrow night he'll be going against another top rated goaltender, one Roberto Luongo when the Rangers take on the Vancouver Canucks at the Garden.





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