Just as Matt Lempe put the puck in in the second period of Saturday’s game between the Garden and the Blues, Martin Gelinas put the puck in late in the third period of Game 6 of the 2004 Cup Finals. In other words, the goal was decided. It wasn’t given to the Blueshirt rookie in the same way it was given to the Calgary winger.
Because although Lempe’s shot did cross the goal line at 7:39 and appeared to rest in an uncertain position, the verdict after video review was that the puck did not completely cross the line and the goal was That’s because it wasn’t there. The same judgment was handed down 20 years ago.
The Lightning then survived two overtime games to win Game 7 at home and win the Holy Grail, depriving the Flames of the Stanley Cup championship. Now, this decision means Rempe will have to wait for his first NHL goal.
Differences with big differences.
In the first match against a strong club after the deadline, they defeated the Blues 4-0, making it another night for Lempe on Broadway. Rangers outscored and outplayed their opponents. They hit the net relentlessly and moved the puck around. They played fast, but even when they fell apart, Igor Shesterkin played with his usual post-All-Star brilliance.
If you want to know how long a hockey season is, it’s so long that at one point well-informed people were talking about the Rangers’ goaltending controversy.
This was our first look at how head coach Peter Laviolette would field his bottom six. Unless something unexpected happens, Jack Roslovic will complete the partnership between Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider, while the unit of Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafreniere will remain intact. .
It’s a no-brainer, even if Laviolette could disrupt it here and there as the club moves into the playoff, dress rehearsal portion of the schedule.
But Laviolette has options against the bottom six, both in line construction and ice time distribution. He needs to see if he has a reliable four-unit rotation in the postseason. That way, clubs won’t be obliged to shift their top six twice in the always costly No. 7 game.
Alex Wennberg skated between Will Quill and Kaapo Kakko on the third line, with Rempe on the left, Barclay Goodrow in the middle and Jimmy Vesey on the right. And surprisingly, it was a night when the opponent didn’t have a strong first line. Although they needed to be marked, Goodrowlein was within 30 seconds of Wennberg’s landing time.
People across the continent who watched the video seemed to think of rempe as a large, empty vessel to be used for entertainment and thrown away after 15 minutes. However, the Rangers did not recall Rempe for his burlesque act. He didn’t come here to be a Ryan Reeves clone.
Rather, the 21-year-old was brought in to bring some attitude to the mix, join on the forecheck, free up space for teammates and bring a dimension to the franchise that has been missing forever. The height of the young man is 6 feet 8¹/₂.
Rempe and his line dominated over 8 minutes, 28 seconds of ice time and had a pretty ridiculous expected goal share of 89.88 percent. No.73 operated below the hash mark. His front operated below the hash mark while establishing a significant territorial advantage. A beautiful head man feed from Goodrow led to Vesey scoring on a semi-breakaway, Rempe found the back of the net on the right side, and No. 26 hit Jordan Binnington for a point for a 2-0 lead late in the first period. .
The trio kept the pressure on all night. They were strong with and without the puck. Fans took turns shouting “Rempe!” Rempe! ” and “Igor! Igor!”
Then, as the third period ended with his team holding a 4-0 lead, Coach Laviolette took advantage of the man advantage and sent Lempe on the power play for 37 seconds, trying to get the big man’s cookie. .
It was that kind of night.
