After falling behind 2-0, the Rangers drew the ire of the MSG crowd on a holiday weekend Sunday. Both goals came off of odd deflections, but that did little to mollify those in attendance. Leave it to Sean Avery to provide the spark, Henrik Lundqvist to save the day and Erik Christensen to be the surprise offensive star in a 5-2 victory.

Avery drew a penalty 1:50 into the second and convinced the ref that a penalty shot was warranted. Avery skated down one side, crossed over and waited and waited until Mike Smith was down and at a strange angle Avery roofed the puck to get the Rangers on the board. This was a move that Avery had practiced against Lundqvist and one that Lundqvist basically goaded him into trying in a real game.

Following that goal, Lundqvist bailed out the Rangers' bacon robbing Nate Thompson 15 seconds later in front on what looked to be a wide-open net, then stoning Martin St. Louis on a two-on-one after a pass across the crease by sliding across from left-to-right to stop the shot. On the ensuing rush, Vaclav Prospal tied the game.

The flood gates then open as Christensen waited for Smith to go down and then put the puck five-hole to make it 3-2 and he followed it up by an end-to-end rush with quick stick-handling at the end and shot to the top shelf wide side. It wouldn't be the Rangers unless they had a defensive breakdown allowing a 3-on-1 that Hank robbed by thwarting Ryan Malone on the doorstep. Chris Drury sealed the win with an empty netter for his 600th career point and 5-2 win.

The Rangers enter the break having won three of four and as Larry Brooks described "they've gotten back on their skates behind Lundqvist, who has surrendered a sum of seven goals over the last four matches, including Wednesday's 2-1 defeat to Nashville. The goaltender's brief, late January-early February dip in which he lost six straight in regulation is a thing of the past." Hank looks stronger in net buoyed by a better glove, which has allowed him to snap shots out of the air rather than just battling them away, and improved positioning by standing a bit further out, staying on his feet a bit longer and not as far down in his crouch.

On Christensen. He has always had the offensive talent, but like the rest of the Rangers, consistency has always been an issue. Due to a lack of depth, the Blueshirts are giving Christensen a shot on the top-two lines, and at times, he has been successful. But, going into yesterday's game, he had 10 points in 37 games, so let's not get overly excited at Sunday's game but he did look good on the tope line and will remain there at least until the trade deadline.

On Melissa and Nick, aka, the fake proposal, a) get a life and b) since MSG reportedly know and were a party to it, unsure who are stupider, the ad company for doing it or them for facilitating it. If you want to see more, read Andrew Gross' account of it.

Arthur Staple pleaded for Glen Sather to be a seller rather than a buyer in Sunday's Newsday arguing that the Dominick Moore trade should be a sign as to what Olli Jokinen and Prospal could net at the deadline. While this reads great on paper and sounds wonderful in theory, we almost all know that Dolan won't let that happen and Sather will be a buyer with the playoffs in sniffing distance.

Olympians:
Ryan Callahan and Chris Drury: Team USA (where is the best place to get a Cally jersey)?
Henrik Lundqvist: Team Sweden
Marian Gaborik: Slovakia (officially placed on roster Monday, so it looks like he will give it a shot)
Olli Jokinen: Finland
Coach John Tortorella is an assistant coach for Team USA

I know everyone is predicting a Russia-Canada final with Sweden likely to finish third but I believe the US will make some noise in the tourney and have the Czechs as a sleeper if Vokoun can get hot between the pipes and Jaromir turns back the clock.

During the Break I will be blogging on how the Rangers are doing at the Olympics and will try to write on some of the ideas proposed to me.

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