Wait 'til Next Year

Today I attended a funeral of sorts - I attended the last game of the New York Rangers' 06-07 season. Their Eastern Conference semi-finals series against the Buffalo Sabres was quite a roller-coaster ride:

Game One (in Buffalo): Rangers lost big, a very fair loss

Game Two (in Buffalo): Rangers lost due to some 'interesting' calls; Rangers could have and should have won this one.

Game Three (in NYC): This is the game I went to (see previous post). Down 2 games to 0, the Rangers came out flying, the Garden was rocking, and a double-overtime win by the Rangers narrowed the series to 2-1. During this game, the officiating was horrendous, and utter embarrasment to the NHL - calls that were consistently in favor of the Sabres; even a legitimate goal by the Rangers was waived off....

Game Four (in NYC): The Rangers take this game, evening the series to 2-2. The officiating was definitely more fair.

Game Five (in Buffalo): Up until 5 minutes left in the game, the score remained 0-0. The Rangers scored, leading the game 1-0. With a minute left, Buffalo pulls their goalie to put a 6th player on the ice. The Rangers ice the puck, moving the face-off deep in the Rangers' zone. There's about 10 seconds left. With 7.7 seconds left, Chris Drury (a former BU player!) ties up the game for the Sabres. The scoring is very controversial because (surprise....) Buffalo committed a penalty that was not called by the refs.... In OT, Buffalo scores (during, guess what - a Rangers penalty...) and takes game 5.

Game Six (in NYC): I'm also at this game: the Rangers score first, but the Sabres take the lead, and the Rangers are trying to play catch-up the entire time. The reffing for the first two periods is bad but not as terrible as the past games. Period three is a different story: Jagr was called TWICE for penalties when he never even touched a Sabre... very fishy... The Sabres capitalized on their power plays and the Rangers just could not catch up. The refs did not call some obvious penalties on the Sabres and the saga continues... After the game, the fans gave a standing ovation to our Rangers, and it made me proud to stand as a Rangers fan. This is the best sports town in the world.

SO, Congratulations to the Sabres who won with a lot of help from the refs (some research also enlightened me to the fact that the officiating during their first series vs. the Islanders was also pretty horrendous and one-sided), who I'm sure was somehow influenced by NHL chair Gary Bettman.

And, a truly heartfelt Congratulations to the Rangers, who outplayed the first-place Sabres, and who should have won the series. Thank you for a wonderful year. We'll have an even better year in 07-08, under the leadership of Jagr and Shanahan, the amazing goaltending of Lundqvist, and the new talents of guys like Calahan. Let's Go Rangers!