Drury out for Game One

April 15, 2009   ·   Derek Felix   ·   Jump to comments

The news wasn’t good for the Rangers, who are playing Game One versus Washington minus their captain Chris Drury, who is out with an upper body injury that caused him to miss the final regular season game and four practices.

According to MSG, he did skate in warmups for six to seven minutes but apparently wasn’t good enough to return meaning that the Blueshirts are going with extra forward Aaron Voros. Drury’s injury must be bad because I just don’t see him as the kind of player who would miss a playoff game. Hopefully, the couple of extra days off before Saturday’s second game will be enough time for him to return.

As for the game itself, the Rangers survived a strong first which saw the Caps outshoot them 14-4 including six from superstar Alex Ovechkin, who tested Henrik Lundqvist. So far, he’s been up to the challenge with teammates killing two power plays including one of the silly variety by Sean Avery in the offensive zone.

Remarkably, the Rangers came the closest to scoring with Ryan Callahan hitting the post following a good forecheck from Avery. They’ll need to do a better job attacking in the second period and stay out of the box. Put some pressure on the Cap D and test Jose Theodore, who looks shaky.

We’ll see how the second 20 minutes go.

Meanwhile, the Devils and Canes are underway at The Rock with the Devs getting five of the first six shots. No score. It’s a joke that this game isn’t on WFAN with the seventh Met game instead on. Wow! That’s so much more important than playoff hockey. Utterly ridiculous.

The Flyers and Pens are also playing with the only goal scored by Pen captain Sidney Crosby on what else but a power play. That can be seen on Versus.

We’ll have more playoff stuff later.