Rangers Watch: NYR 0, OTT 2

The Rangers were unable to generate much offense tonight. Unlike the trap performed by a middling Panthers team, New York couldn't weave their way through the five Senators camped in the neutral zone. Once they got the puck deep, they earned some quality chances but the Rangers weren't able to solve Martin Gerber.

Henrik Lundqvist was the bright spot for Blueshirt fans. As opposed to last season, the King has gotten off to a strong start. He can hardly be blamed for the two Ottawa goals. Both came of defensive miscues: Marik Malik left the front of the net without coverage on the first and Marc Staal was unable to recover from a comically bad change resulting in the second.

I don't think we'll see the Strudwick/Staal pair again soon. They seemed to have a hard time reading each other. This wasn't Scott Gomez's best game either. He was trying to do it all himself, using his speed to gain the zone but rarely getting a shot off on the rush.

Oh, and the Rangers lost Sean Avery (separated shoulder - out 4 weeks) to a Chris Neil hit. I thought it was clean, unlike the late hit Neil laid on Peter Prucha (who actually had his head up for once) later in the game.

Recaps: Y!/AP, TSN Broadband