It’s been a slow week here at The Rivalry, due to Bryan having a new baby to take care of (poor excuse) and me having work and a marathon 24 session the other night (better excuse).

I wanted to write something Saturday night after the Rangers overtime loss to Montreal about how, even though they lost, there was still some good to take from the game. Mainly, I wanted to write about the good surrounding the goals they scored.

For example…

Rangers fan favorite Michal Rozsival had a nice shot on Jaroslav Halak moments before Artem Anisimov scored to make it 1-1. It was good to see Rozy shooting – I guess he finally realized there’s no Jaromir Jagr to pass to and he decided he better shoot. And Anisimov? That goal was beautiful – patient and surgeon-like in accuracy.

While Ales Kotalik had a great shot on his goal that made it 2-1 and Sean Avery had a nice pass from behind the net (which he does quite often), the real credit lies with Dan Girardi. If not for him quickly catching the puck from midair and passing it behind the net from the point, the puck would’ve been cleared and play would’ve gone down to Henrik Lundqvist’s side of the ice.

On the 3-1 goal, all 3 players who got points had excellent plays. Marian Gaborik fought off a defender and passed to Vinny Prospal, who saw danger coming and softly hit the puck off the boards to Matt Gilroy, who had an absolute bomb from the point. He also was patient and followed it up with a booming shot. Very good to see that.

Gaborik made it 4-2 on nice passes from Mike Del Zotto and Enver Lisin. In two quick, long passes, they sprung him for a breakaway, and of course, he scored.

Sure, there were some defensive breakdowns. I guess Gaborik’s back-checking could be a little stronger. And yes, they blew two 2-goal leads before losing the game. And yes, they gave up a hat trick. And they even made Scott Gomez look good in the game. But they did have a few good plays that shone through – most notably Gaborik’s offensive skills and Girardi’s great play on the Kotalik goal.

* * *

I want to talk about two things now, both related to last night’s win against Phoenix.

1) Chris Drury – He hasn’t been playing incredibly well, and he definitely hasn’t been lighting it up on the stats sheet, but I think that’s okay this year. Last season, the pressure was on him to score, and he came up with 56 points in 81 games, just under his career average of 59.53 points per game. (You could even say he had a lot of pressure to score in 2007-08 when Brendan Shanahan was hurt, Jagr was hurt and slower, and Rozsival and Marty Straka wouldn’t fire a puck to the net to save their lives.)

However, everyone expected more from his. Add up his giganticly inflated contract, his first year as Captain, and the departure of the other veterans (including Avery), and people expected numbers that he put up under Lindy Ruff in Buffalo (his 2 seasons in Buffalo post-lockout: 67 and 69 points… still not huge numbers).

This year, with Gaborik, Kotalik, Prospal, and Avery here, he can stop trying to score and just be a good defensive forward, which he has been. He is killing penalties and blocking a ton of shots and being a behind-the-scenes player. That’s what his role always was, and that’s what it should be.

Of course, Blair Betts did all that for 11 times less money.

2) Enver Lisin – The season is still young, but I would call trading Lauri Korpikoski for Lisin a good trade. Korpikoski scored 14 points in 68 games last year and looked lost for most of the season. Not very good for the guy drafted 10 spots ahead of Mike Green in 2004.

Lisin is fast as hell, and what’s even more surprising is that he’s keeping up with Prospal and Gaborik on the 1st line. That gives John Tortorella so many more options, including putting a struggling player – say, Chris Higgings – on the 4th line.

He’s been an exciting surprise, and I’m curious to see where he goes from here. Now let’s just hope Tortorella keeps him on the 1st line for a while, and doesn’t “Tom Renney” him back to 7 minutes a game.