New York Rangers Warning: Watch out for the Classic Trap Game
The New York Rangers will take on the league-worst Colorado Avalanche Saturday night at the Garden. If the team gets cocky about the matchup, it’s already over.
To the average fan, this seems like a game the New York Rangers should win handily, which would allow them to go on a five-game winning streak. If the Rangers go into the game feeling the same way, they are going to be in for a rude awakening.
This is the NHL and despite what the Colorado Avalanche’s record may be, they are still an NHL team with NHL talent. Just ask the Atlantic Division-leading Montreal Canadiens. Behind the stellar performance of 24-year-old starting goaltender Calvin Pickard, the Avalanche shutout and shut down the Habs to the tune of a 4-0 score a couple of days ago.
If you give guys like Nathan McKinnon, Gabriel Landeskog or Matt Duchene any room, they will bury their chances. Tyson Barrie will be out of the lineup, so the Rangers will at least have that working in their favor.
For those of you who don’t know what a “trap game” is, it is a game where there is one team, usually on a hot streak of late is projected to beat down on the team they will play against. Yes, it would make perfect sense if the Rangers (35 wins) defeated the Avalanche (15 wins). It would especially make sense since the Rangers are on a four-game winning streak and have now won three straight at home.
The Rangers also defeated the Avalanche on New Year’s Eve by a score of 6-2 in a game in which Chris Kreider had a hat trick. Kreider has stayed hot over the last month and a half, upping his goal total to 22 on the year, a career high with 28 games remaining.
Regardless…
All of this is to say that the Rangers, according to all the numbers and stats, should smoke the Avalanche tonight like a Cuban cigar. With that said, though, they cannot go out there thinking that way.
With all that said, this would be an enormous win for the Rangers. If they were to win, they’d be on a five-game winning streak, would have swept their four-game homestand and allowed Henrik Lundqvist to be the 12th goalie in NHL history to reach the 400 win mark. Lundqvist would be only the second goalie of all-time to reach that mark having won all of this games with a single team.
So for many reasons, this is a huge game for the Rangers tonight and against a team that has nothing to lose, really, they need to bring their A-game and not let their visitor’s record fool them.
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