At the beginning of the season, the Wild had the most points in hockey. A month ago, it was the Blackhawks. So much changes week to week and month to month, you can’t do much more than keep your head down and try to win games and hope your team can eek out a spot in the West.

Congrats to the Hawks, they beat a great team last night. Back on track? We’ll see come April.

Glad you’re excited about your Rangers but they haven’t done squat in what 15 years?
You also mentioned Philly being down and Crosby being out as well as Boston laggin and then you want to puff your chest about the Rangers success? C’mon you just listed the primary reasons for it. We’ll see how this shapes up come June, everybody knows it don’t mean nothin until the playoffs.

Check back here then and see what you have to say.

That said, your level of “yeah, but” rationalization is a bit much.

It simply cannot be ignored that:

Chicago spent a lot of time on the PK… of course they’re going to get outshot.

NHL records are based on Wins, Losses and Overtime Losses. Not Wins, Losses, OTL, and Losses In Which Your Backup Goalie started.

The Hawks aren’t a blind squirrel. They’re a recent cup winner and was near or at the top of the league when they dropped off a cliff into an losing streak in which they were repeatedly embarrassed. But this isn’t the worst team in the league.

Still, based on the last two games, you could say Chicago’s PK is back on track–and that’s about it.

1. The Rangers were playing their 6th game in 4 days and were coming off a hard fought win against the second best team in the east a couple nights ago.

2. Lundquist, almost certainly the best goalie in the NHL this year, was not playing.

3. Chicago was out scored (2-0) and out shot (19-12) over the last 50 minutes.

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Now, obviously all teams have wins like this… and the Rangers have had their fair share of them this year. I’m just pointing out that when your a team thats lost 9 games in a row its WAY too early to break out the champagne simply becasue you played 10 really good minutes of hockey against a team that was clearly setup for a let down. I can understand that a Blackhawks fan will be very happy tonight. Just don’t expect those 10 minutes to mean anything beyond this game until the Blakchawks prove otherwise.