NHL Thursday night Match Analysis: New York Rangers vs. St. Louis Blues 4-1
After getting a huge 6-1 win against Florida Panthers, New York has not been able to keep the momentum going by losing against Dallas Stars in the following matchup by a 1-0 shutout and now by St. Louis as the Blues routed the Rangers by a dominating, 4-1,
victory on Thursday night, December 15, 2011, at the Saint Louis, Missouri, United States.
Ever since the St. Louis management fired their previous coach, Davis Payne, the Blues have seen a significant improvement in terms of their performance by getting their fourth straight win under the guidance of coach, Ken Hitchcock.
"We played a good game today," Coach Hitchcock said after the contest. "We played very hard. Once we got up to speed after five minutes of that first period and got our legs under us, I thought we really did a lot of good things today. We moved the puck,
our exits were as good as it's been all year. We were able to get out of our zone and not get hemmed in. We really established a strong fore-check in the ladder half of the first period and the second period. We were able to sustain a good quality game from
start to finish. It's impressive."
Now that the Blues have newly gained leadership, they want to win matches with confidence rather than winning without having the victory on mind before entering the arena. St. Louis might not have had the best record in the past few seasons but they are
now on track to turn all the tables around in their favour. They now stand strong at the fifth position of the Western Conference with 39 points, tied with Detroit Red Wings and easily capable of moving to the top.
Patrik Berglund potted the opening goal 7:06 into the first period for his seventh of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season to take an early lead while David Perron boosted it by adding another nearly four minutes later in the penalty-less
period.
Brian Elliott was in the net for St. Louis and faced fewer shots than his counterpart in the New York end. Elliott routed 25 of 26 shots while falling short on only one while Henrik Lundqvist failed to block three of a total of 35.
Michael Del Zotto added his third of the season with less than four minutes remaining in the second period after the Rangers managed to kill of an early penalty given to Steve Eminger for holding with a minor penalty.
New York was heading into the third period down by one which looked easy to catch up to at the moment but St. Louis’ confidence during the match proved to be greater than thought before with Alexander Steen extending the lead in the opening minute and Jason
Arnott securing the match in favour of St. Louis in the final minutes of regulation.
The Rangers are in a tight position in terms of ranking in the Eastern Conference as they stand tied with three clubs with 38 points and are on the brink of falling below their current position of fourth in the division.
They have the next against Phoenix Coyotes on Saturday on the road while the St. Louis Blues will certainly be looking for their fifth straight win on the same day as they visit Nashville Predators.
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