One Point

One point.

That's exactly what the Rangers' 6-5 overtime loss to the Canadiens meant to them.

Let me repeat: one point.

After the Rangers wins over Buffalo, Florida and Carolina in their last three games - two of those coming on the road - I think it's safe to say that the collapse in Montreal last week won't have any long-term effects.

Fine, the competition hasn't exactly been the stiffest. However, if the Rangers were really going to go in the tank after choking away a 5-0 lead, it wouldn't matter who the opposition was. Instead, the Rangers won their third straight last night, 4-2, with the Attitude ADJustment line delivering two goals.

In collegiate news, my feature on Princeton is up on USCHO. Enjoy. I'll be taking in more collegiate action tomorrow night, when I head up to West Point for Senior Night at Tate Rink, and what could be one hell of a regular season finale.

Just to recap, Army leads Atlantic Hockey with 33 points, up two points on both RIT and Sacred Heart, the latter being the Black Knights' opposition in this weekend's home-and-home series. Tomorrow night could be crazy, and I'll certainly be following what happens tonight while I check out my buddies Hugh Jessiman and Mike Ouellette as they play for the Hartford Wolfpack against the Norfolk Admirals.

---------

Finally, something else that I had a mind to say in my previous employment, but didn't. It involves a pro wrestling reference, which I didn't want to make at CSTV, but this is my blog and mine alone, and I'll make as many wrestling references as I Zach-damn well please.

(Yes, I will make the "Zach Parise is G-d" jokes here, if for no other reason than that there's so much else going on in the world that I doubt The Genuine Article has time to worry about college hockey).

Anyway, this has to do with the subject of strength of schedule. I don't think it's meaningless by any stretch of the imagination, but I don't think it means as much as it's being made out to by those who doubt Michigan, Miami, etc.

In the fall of 1996, with the cash cow known as the nWo having just been introduced, there was going to be a WarGames match between the nWo and a WCW team (WarGames: coolest gimmick match ever). Sting and Lex Luger proposed joining forces with Ric Flair and Arn Anderson, who had been their rivals before the whole nWo business started.

Anderson, who is one of the best promo men who ever worked in wrestling, gave a long response that included a memorable (to me, anyway...sadly, it's not on YouTube) comment in the direction of Luger, who at that point had a real bodybuilder physique (not to mention better hair). He pointed at Luger's muscles and said that they were "show muscles," and no good in WarGames, but if Luger could bring the drive, intensity, and hard work that it took to get those muscles, that would be useful.

This is how I feel about teams that play "soft schedules." The record is like those "show muscles" that Arn Anderson talked about: it may look more impressive than it actually is, but the tools a team uses to win those games and amass that record? The skills, strength, speed, etc? Those are worth something, and just because those attributes have been tested against a less-than-impressive schedule, that doesn't mean that they aren't there.

I've seen Michigan, Miami, Michigan State and Notre Dame. I've seen what they bring to the table. Knock their schedules all you want, because it doesn't mean a thing about what kinds of teams they are.

I will say, however, that Miami will be much better off in the future if they can get out of the Ohio Hockey Classic. With Ohio State in its current condition as a program, that tournament does nothing for the RedHawks, and they should have gotten out of that instead of getting out of the Lefty McFadden.

If Miami is going to always be a road team in a holiday tournament, they'd do much better moving around, and going to the Denver Cup, Dodge Holiday Classic, one of the Florida tournaments, etc. At the very least, Ohio State should try to alternate Miami and Bowling Green as the second Ohio team in the tournament, so that each could move around in alternate years. Dartmouth is doing something like that since Vermont started hosting the Catamount Cup every year, as they host the Ledyard Bank tournament every other year, and are heading elsewhere at the holidays when they don't host.

There, I've said my piece on that.