He's just the man...

It's no surprise the Rangers' five-game losing streak came in conjunction with them not standing up for each other as a team. Daniel Girardi stood by and let Marian Gaborik get pummeled by Flyers enforcer Dan Carcillo. The team lost that game and 5 more. Without Gaborik, this team would have 5 to 7 victories this year.

Gaborik came up with a natural hat trick to lead the Rangers over the Colorado Avalanche 3-1. He literally is the whole team. For the second straight night Henrik Lundqvist sat out while Chad Johnson made a strong bid for his first NHL shutout and ended up with his first win. He played very well especially during a 18 shot barrage in the third.

Ales Kotalik was sent home before the game as GM Glen Sather is trying to move yet another of his free agent mistakes. 3 years at $3 million per has been another disaster just a few months in. Aside from Gaborik's contract, Sather has not given out one that makes sense since before the lockout. It's a constant struggle for this guy to erase his mistakes but then he goes ahead and makes them again (See Donald Brashear, Wade Redden, Michal Rozsival, Chris Drury, and Kotalik to name a handful). It's ok though because he has a job for life.

Word on the street is the Rangers are getting ready to send Kotalik and Christopher (another disaster) Higgins to Calgary for Olli Jokinen and Brandon Prust. I'd rather see them trade Kotalik and Higgins for just Prust because he's a tough kid but that can't happen. This deal is in a holding pattern though. The Blueshirts are also heard to be trying to get in on the Ilya Kovalchuk sweepstakes. Not sure how that could possibly happen salary cap wise unless Jokinen and his over $5 million per is flipped.

Hanging Chad...

Only the Rangers could lose to a team that hadn't won in 9 games. Rookie goalie Chad Johnson was spectacular trying to keep his team in it and had a shutout going into the third. Sean Avery returned to Mr. Invisible and Marian Gaborik didn't score so... yeah 1 goal seems about right.

Marc Staal got it started taking the puck from Johnson behind his net and flying up right side of the ice. He pulled up just inside Atlanta's blue line before he whistled a perfect pass to Enver Lisin who tipped in his 5th of the season. That should have been enough right?

A bad line change by Chris Drury left Brian Boyle defenseless to stop Jim Slater who walked in alone and beat Johnson through the legs on a nice backhand move. Drury was otherwise stellar blocking and injuring himself on several shots.

The shootout doomed the Rangers as 3 of the 5 participants (Del Zotto, Kotalik, Callahan) couldn't even muster a shot on goal... amazing. Slava Kozlov and Bryan Little beat Johnson through the legs while Marian Gaborik did the same to Johan Hedberg in the shootout. The Rangers fell 2-1 but still managed to get a loser's point.