Greetings and salutations everyone and welcome to another blog here on BlueCollarBlueShirts.com. IGOR! IGOR! IGOR!
Oh wait – I’m still feeling the high from last night’s 5-1 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning!
Returning to Friday night’s showdown in Motown then I give you this:
DYLAN! DYLAN! DYLAN!
Unless Garand scored a goal himself against the Red Wings on October 2nd, 2026 – then it was going to be impossible to follow what CZAR IGOR just did a day prior.
But if anything could come close to topping CZAR IGOR’s first career goal, then it was a shutout for the young Rangers’ rookie – you know – the guy that both GM Chris Drury and head coach Mike Sullivan were willing to give up to the rest of the league for nothing in return.
And in hindsight – then don’t you think that both the Vancouver Canucks and Edmonton Oilers could use a strong starting goalie these days?
After all, in their opening home-and-home series and these two teams gave up a combined 27 goals!
27!
Conversely, and the Rangers have only given up four goals in three games played – and where only half of these goals were of the even-strength variety!
Off puck drop tonight, then if you recall what I wrote some 24-hours ago, then I said that I wouldn’t be back with a recap of Friday night’s tilt in Detroit.
After all, I’m working a ton of overtime and running on no sleep!
That said?
Then I had to return, even if this manifesto will be much shorter than usual – and only to celebrate Garand’s heroics in net.
(And if you find any GRAMMER or TIPO errors tonight, then it’s because I haven’t slept in a day – and where I didn’t even have the time to proof-read any of this too! That said, then I do believe that you’ll get the gist of my message either way!)
Most of the Rangers’ 2-0 win against the Red Wings wasn’t much – at least not offensively.
As opposed to the electric M$G crowd the Blueshirts played in front of one day ago – and the feeling, vibe and everything else was the complete opposite in the Motor City.
Behind shaky management, a captain who was just stripped of his leadership role due to his own trade request and no playoff appearances in a decade – and the once powerful Spoked Wheel has been flat for years – and without a new wheel to drive them away from irrelevancy in sight.
The Red Wings, who hosted the Rangers in their season/home opener, were greeted by loud boos when Departin’ Dylan Larkin was announced in front of their fans as a healthy scratch.
As opposed to Larkin’s Team USA teammate, Winnipeg Jets’ goalie Connor Hellebuyck, who remains away from Manitoba hence his current unpaid suspension, then Larkin remains with the Wings – as he still wants to get paid.
Fans of the Red Wings let their former captain hear it.
The failed Yzerplan mess was also addressed in Detroit – as not even five-minutes into the game – and there were “SELL THE TEAM” chants echoing throughout the Pizza Palace (Little Caesar’s Arena).
It didn’t help that just twelve-seconds after that chant – and the Rangers scored what would eventually hold-up as the game-winning goal – Sean Durzi’s first as a Ranger – and a power-play strike at that.
The Blueshirts, who went wire-to-wire, and just as they did a day prior, did it in a different fashion in Detroit.
Rather than explosive offense all game, and the Rangers, who jumped out to a quick 1-0 lead and an 8-1 SOG advantage, quickly gassed out.
Between the short training camp and three games in four nights (including a late night flight to Detroit after the win in New York on Thursday night) – then it was understandable when you saw tired legs out there.
Thankfully – and Garand was not gassed.
He came to play.
From about the ten-minute mark of the first period and then throughout – and it was Garand that did the bulk of the heavy lifting.
While there was some luck along the way (hey – we all need it); but you couldn’t be any happier with what you saw out of #33 on this night.
The only people perhaps frustrated with Garand’s monstrous showing?
Sullivan, Drury and Korpisalo – as Garand, at least for one night, made asses out of all of them.
As far as the Blueshirts themselves, who ultimately won 2-0 after Eeli Tolvanen scored for the second time in two nights (empty netter), then my biggest takeaway is that this game would’ve been two-points they would have squandered away had it been played last season.
And yeah – maybe Detroit is just that bad – and a rival Original Six organization that’s even bleaker than the Big Apple hockey club too.
Either way, and it would’ve been so on brand for the Rangers to choke away their razor-thin one-goal lead.
Heck, we kinda saw a similar scenario play out on Tuesday night in Boston (when the Rangers gave up three goals in 1:15 during the final four-minutes of regulation in what was a nil-nil tie at the time).
It was never pretty or sexy on Friday night – but the Blueshirts did the grunt work and slugged themselves to victory.
And at this rate, and especially after last year – then any win is good enough for me.
But of course, and this game, and like many Ranger games throughout the past hundred years, will be remembered for one position – the goaltender – and kudos to GARAND THE GREAT on his first NHL shutout!
Again, I gotta be brief tonight, so let me breeze through this – but of course, my usual spiel at this juncture:
In case you missed it, then here’s where I last left off – the CZAR IGOR goal:
NYR/TBL 10/1 Review: CZAR IGOR Picks Up a GORDIE HOWE CAREER HAT TRICK; First Ever Rangers’ Goalie To Score a Goal, Blueshirts Bounce Back From Brutal Beantown Loss; Complete Team Effort in Beatdown of Bolts, FAT CATS & “YOUTS” Show Up On Opening Night, Sullen Sully’s Word Salad Meaningless Interviews, Unofficial Top-Ten List, Garand FINALLY Gets His Rightful Spot on The Roster After Drury Plays with Fire; Start in Detroit Likely, M$GN & More
Obviously, then due to the game played last night, the flight afterwards and the late arrival in Detroit – then the Rangers didn’t practice on Friday prior to puck drop.
However, Sullen Sully did address the media.
Of note, Sullivan, and as he did the day prior, said he still didn’t know when Joonas Korpisalo received his injury, nor when he’d be back/debut.
And it’s not like any Ranger fan is beckoning for Korpisalo to grace us with his presence either!
Sullen Sully, part of the beleaguered Blueshirts’ brain-trust also showered heavy praise upon Dylan Garand – his now defacto back-up goalie – and soon-to-be hopeful permanent back-up backstop.
In a 180, especially since the head coach, along with the idiotic general manager Chris Drury, were willing to lose Garand for nothing in return just four days ago; Sully said, “Dylan and I have had a lot of conversations about him when the decision was made to send him to Hartford. He knows that we believe in him. I don’t know that I have to say anything else.”
Sure Sully, sure!
Here was Silly Sully’s line-up for the third game of this 84-game 2026-27 campaign – and the same identical line-up from the night before, sans the goalie change:
FIRST LINE: Perreault/Mika/Lafreniere
SECOND LINE: Dorofeyev/Miller/Bjorkstrand
THIRD LINE: Cuylle/Laba/Tolvanen
FOURTH LINE: Kartye/Veleno/Chmelar
FIRST PAIR: Gavrikov/Fox
SECOND PAIR: Pettersson/Durzi
THIRD PAIR: Smits/Schneider
STARTING GOALIE: Garand
BACK-UP: CZAR IGOR
HEALTHY SCRATCHES: Morrow, Robertson and Rempe
IR: Korpisalo
OF NOTE: The only line-up change from Tuesday to Thursday was Chmelar in, Rempe out (and of course, the back-up goalie spot too).
BOX SCORE time.
The following graphics and information come from ESPN.com:
SCORING:
PENALTIES:
TEAM STATS:
GOALIES:
|
NYR
|
|
Dylan Garand#33
|
|---|
|
SA
|
GA
|
SV
|
SV%
|
ESSV
|
PPSV
|
SHSV
|
SOSA
|
SOS
|
TOI
|
PIM
|
| 22 | 0 | 22 | 1.000 | 19 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 60:00 | 0 |
|
DET
|
|
John Gibson#36
|
|---|
|
SA
|
GA
|
SV
|
SV%
|
ESSV
|
PPSV
|
SHSV
|
SOSA
|
SOS
|
TOI
|
PIM
|
| 20 | 1 | 19 | .950 | 16 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 0 | 59:02 | 0 |
I didn’t pay much attention to the TNT pregame and intermission segments tonight.
After all, I was at work – and I saved all my break time for the on ice stuff – and not the stuff in studio!
That said, then it is worth mentioning that the Islanders’ Brendan Burke and Blue Jackets’ Jody Shelley called the game.
I bring this up, because instead of having the Rangers’ Kenny Albert call the game with his usual TNT partner, Eddie O., then TNT had their A-team doing the St. Louis v. Dallas game.
And when it comes to TV ratings/streaming viewership – then you’d think that Rangers/Wings is a bigger draw than Blues/Stars.
GAME REVIEW time, and again, sorry for the brevity tonight – but I am running on no sleep and have to be up in two-hours too!
At least this game wasn’t that exciting, so you didn’t really miss much if you didn’t see it.
FIRST PERIOD
Mika won the opening draw to set the pace between the two Original Six rivals.
The second line picked up where they left off from last night, as John Gibson had to fight off Dorofeyev, while also being bailed out by an errant shot by Captain Miller.
As it would be the case all night, then TNT continued to replay CZAR IGOR’s goal from Thursday night – and where NO – that goal will never get old!
At the 3:31 mark, Bjorkstrand drew the first power-play of the game as Nate Danielson held him as the second-liner was attacking.
About half-way in, Fox had a shot denied and Mika made a half-hearted attempt at trying to keep the puck in the zone.
Once the Rangers’ second man-up unit came on then after some nifty passing, Perreault found Durzi patiently waiting at the point for the 1-0 power-play blast!
In other words, at the 5:12 mark, 1-0, GOOD GUYS – and where the SOG total was Rangers a touchdown, Detroit nil.
The frustration set in for Detroit some 24-seconds later, as this is when we had a scrum in front of Gibson’s net – and another Rangers’ PP too – the end result of Michael Rasmussen going after Chmelar and with Keegan Kolesar and Joe Veleno trading unsportsmanlike conduct penalties.
After this?
Back-to-back power-play goals for Dazzlin’ Durzi – as after taking a feed from Cuylle – the d-man just marched into the right circle and wristed the puck past Gibson.
Or so we thought.
Upon video review, it was revealed that Cuylle was offside by a c-hair – as this was another one of these cheap reviews that disallows a goal despite the player making the tiny mistake having nothing to do with the score.
End result?
1/2 Rangers’ power-play.
Down to 11:20 remaining and Garand made his first real save of the game – and as he did on Axel Sandin-Pellikka‘s snap shot.
A minute later and Garand denied Justin Faulk too.
And give Mopey Mika some credit – as the for the second consecutive night – and he was involved in a post-whistle scrum – and a scrum that was kicked off by Smits (who got away with a slash).
After some back-and-forth, the Rangers, once out-shooting the wings 8-1, had their margin decreased to 8-5 with about 8:30 remaining.
In other words, Garand, after not seeing much work early in the period, now had five saves.
Right after this and Perreault had all day to shoot after deking Gibson out of his shorts but the goalie survived.
Following the save, and with 7:22 remaining, the Wings raced into the Rangers’ end and this led to the physical Smits taking a cross-checking penalty on Mason Appleton as the Spoked Wheel were crashing Garand’s crease.
Two-minutes later – and the Rangers’ PK was now 1/1 – and without allowing a SOG to boot.
Down to 4:06 remaining and Johansson smashed the post. Former Ranger, Andrew Copp, was there for the tip/rebound but somehow GARAND THEFT AUTO made the robbery save off of his back.
And let’s face it – sometimes you need some luck – and Garand had a horseshoe up his ass here!
After a Dorofeyev turning with 90-ticks to go, Johansson shot wide, and on the rebound, Garand denied Marco Kasper.
1-0, GOOD GUYS, after twenty.
Here’s what I said at the time:
1-0, #NYR, after one period. Thoughts:
— The Rangers started off hot, but slowed down as the period went along. They were at one point out-shooting the Wings 8-1, now the SOG are 11-9, Wings.
— Durzi, who scored the power-play goal, should have two – but the league still allows coaches to take away goals for a player being a centimeter off-side. (I wonder how many goals Gretzky would have finished with under these incessant video reviews/challenges?)
— This is the Blueshirts’ third game in four nights – and the first Detroit game this season – so I guess losing some pace was to be expected.
— That said? This is probably a good thing for GARAND THEFT AUTO – as long as he keeps making the saves.
— Korpiswallow who?
SECOND PERIOD
After Zibanejad took the first draw of this frame from former teammate Robo-Copp, then it only took 47 seconds for Durzi to take a tripping penalty on Compher (Durzi also took out one of the linesmen too).
The Wings, who didn’t get a SOG on their first power-play, only needed three-seconds to record one here – which led to Garand picking up his first short-handed save too (DeBrincat).
To close this particular PK, Garand made a pair of tough saves on Nygard and Finnie.
End result – a perfect and now 2/2 Rangers’ PK – and three shorty saves for #33 in Rangers’ white.
With not a lot going on from the Rangers’ end at this point (5:48 mark, no SOG in the period) and it was noticeable when Smits laid a big hit on Danielson.
About a minute later, then what was previously a Rangers’ 8-1 SOG advantage was now a 16-8 Wings’ edge – or in other words – Detroit was out-shooting New York at a 2:1 clip.
At the eight-minute mark, Mika had all day to blast a puck at Gibson – but like a drunken frat boy – fumbled the rubber.
At the half-way mark of the game, the Rangers finally put a SOG via a Fox-to-Miller deflection, but Gibson, who could’ve went out for a hot dog, made the save.
Down to 8:35 remaining and Garand The Great did it again, as he stoned Compher from point-blank range.
Right after that and Garand shut down a Kasper wrap-around attempt.
Come 7:47 remaining and Pellikka was boxed for hooking Chmelar. This then led to a scrum – and Kasper, for whatever reason, deciding to throw down and jump Durzi – a mistake for the Motowner – as Durzi won the fight.
With Durzi, who should’ve had two power-play goals, in the box (and he was also one assist away from the Gordie Howe hat trick too) – and once again – and the Rangers’ first power-play unit failed to connect.
The end result – a now 1/3 Blueshirts’ man-up teams – and where Gibson only had to make one stop during these two-minutes too.
From this point, we had a shot on goal a side – and a lot of stoppage whistles too.
We remained 1-0, GOOD GUYS, after forty-minutes.
Here’s what I said at the time:
1-0, #NYR, through two periods of play. Thoughts:
— Last year’s Rangers would find a way to lose this game. Let’s see what they are made of now.
— SOG, 20-14, home team – Garand continues to shine.
— Durzi is having a great showing tonight.
— Schedule hasn’t been kind to the Rangers, so the Wings will have fresher legs in the third. Nice test coming up.
THIRD PERIOD
Just 1:28 into the frame and the Rangers went on the power-play as J.T. Miller was slashed by Justin Faulk. In a response, Sullivan took a timeout, in order to give his top-six some rest – and a talking to as well.
The discussion didn’t lead to results and come two-minutes later – and the Rangers’ PP was now 1/4.
By the five-minute mark, the Blueshirts’ third-line had a good shift, but nothing on the board.
At the 7:30 mark, Tolvanen stepped in front of a Rasmussen shot. Team player.
Down to the half-way mark of the period and we remained at 1-0 – and with Garand sitting on 21 saves (Gibson was 16/17).
Come 8:00 left to play – and the SOG this period was 2-1 – and in favor of the home team – so yeah – this wasn’t exactly an exciting period.
At the FOXWOODS FINAL FIVE mark, everything remained the same.
Some 34-seconds later and Gibson made an insurance save when he stopped a Pettersson-to-Kartye tip-try.
Come 3:57 to go and Garand did it again, with a juggling save on Compher.
Some thirty-seconds later and Laba broke up a Detroit scoring attack.
Down to 2:10 to go and Gibson left the net. Immediately after, Mika went wide.
And with 1:16 left, Tolvanen sealed the deal with his 2-0 empty netter – and his second goal in as many nights.
2-0, GOOD GUYS, your final – and a beautiful 22-save shutout for GARAND THEFT AUTO too!
As far as anything else, then Sullivan praised Garand to the moon, saying how he knew he could do it, how Garand was a great goalie and blah blah blah.
Following such hollow compliments, no one asked him this follow-up:
“THEN WHY DID YOU NOT ONLY SIGN KORPISALO THIS SUMMER – BUT DEMOTE GARAND BECAUSE OF THIS SIGNING TOO?”
Elsewhere, and Mollie Walker was asking Garand what his favorite Taylor Swift song was.
This birdbrain Blueshirts’ state media beat, I’ll tell ya!
Up Next For The Rangers: An off-day on Saturday followed by a 6PM late matinee puck drop against the Utah Mormons.
I’ll be back after the game, but for now, it’s bed time for me, which means for you, your favorite segment:
PLUGS TIME! (Buy a book and support my Rangers’ induced therapy bills. After all, I don’t run ads on this site!)
My fourth title and tenth book is now available!
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My second plug of tonight’s blog – the mandatory plug for my book, “The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden.”
As mentioned previously, the book is now available in hardcover, in paperback and in Kindle formats. To purchase a copy of the book, visit this link:
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For those still looking for signed paperback versions of the book, I have re-ordered more copies. I now have a few signed copies for sale at $25 a pop (includes shipping price) through me directly. Here is all the information on that:
Order “The New York Rangers Rink of Honor and the Rafters of Madison Square Garden” Book Today
My four-volume set of books, “One Game at a Time – A Season to Remember,” is a game-by-game recount of the Rangers 2021-22 campaign.
My second title as an author, “One Game at a Time – A Season to Remember,” is now available in eBook, paperback and hardcover formats.
To obtain signed copies, visit: https://bluecollarblueshirts.com/onegamebook/
To purchase all four volumes on Amazon, visit: Amazon.com – “One Game at a Time.”
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To purchase Volume I: Conn Smythe (1926) – Craig Patrick (1986), visit Amazon.com
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If you haven’t already, subscribe to this blog for the next update:
Don’t forget to order my four-volume set of books, “Tricks of the Trade!”
If you don’t order through me, all four volumes are now available on Amazon.com
For more details, check out: https://bluecollarblueshirts.com/tricksofthetrade/
Thanks for reading.
LET’S GO RANGERS!
Sean McCaffrey
BULLSMC@aol.com
