Rangers strong start propels them to a 5-2 victory over Sens

Slowly but surely its coming. With today's strong effort and a 5-2 win, the Rangers are only 2 points out of 1st place in the East. The Rangers dominated the Sens early on, getting out to an early 3-o lead, and ended up getting goalie Martin Gerber pulled. Luckily though the Rangers got that lead, because the Sens put out a strong effort in the 2nd and 3rd periods, but could not solve Henrik Lundqvist. Put them on a list with the rest of the teams that fell short against him. He put on another stellar performance today, stopping 31 of 33 shots. Rangers got goals from Dan Girardi, Jaromir Jagr, Blair Betts, and a pair from Brendan Shanahan. Jagr put out a great effort and seemed to top his performance from the last game against the Isles Thursday night. He scored on the power play to give the Rangers a 3-0 lead, and seemingly had the puck every shift when he was on the ice in the 1st period. He could not be stopped early on.

On the opposite side of things, the Sens were handed their 6th loss in a row, and don't look anything like they did early in the season. They have allowed 32 goals in their last 8 games. With this loss, they have allowed the Rangers to move closer to the top spot in the east.

"I thought toward the end of the second and into the third we showed a little more energy in their zone," Senators coach John Paddock said. "We're a good hockey team that's a lot better than we're playing right now. But we're not winning lots of battles in the corners either offensively or defensively."

Ottawa didn't help themselves early on by turning the puck over a lot in the neutral zone, and making passes through the center of the ice, and not up the boards. The Rangers took advantage of that by dominating early on by throwing shots at Marty Gerber, and taking an 11-3 shot advantage to start the game. From there on out though, the Rangers got outshot 30-14. But were stopped and left baffled, by Lundqvist. With today's win Lundqvist is the league leader with 14. The Rangers next obstacle is the Carloina Hurricanes, who should come into this game with a vengeance, after being pummeled by the Sabres tonight, losing 8-1.