Amazing Saint Nik The Difference

by: Derek Felix | Senior Writer - NY Sports Day | Friday, October 31, 2008



Just call him the amazing Saint Nik. As we get into the holiday spirit with Halloween ending with the best Ranger start in franchise history, first-year Blueshirt Nikolai Zherdev continues to be the story.

The 23 year-old Russian was the biggest Broadway star scoring a goal and setting up another in the club’s 3-2 home win over a feisty Thrasher club on the eve of All Hallow’s Eve. Their fourth straight victory allowed Tom Renney’s club to finish off the quickest start in Ranger history with the team finishing October 10-2-1 for a league best 21 points.

“We can’t mistake what we’re doing here for being great,” Renney later pointed out. “We’ve had moments of greatness in every game, but it’s about sustaining that.”

Not surprisingly, it didn’t come so easy against a team which entered winless in five having gotten blown out 7-0 on home ice by Philadelphia the other night. The Thrashers came with a much better effort and were rewarded with the game’s first goal. Something that’s become a Ranger habit. They entered 4-0-1 when allowing an opponent to get on the board first.

Veteran Russian forward Slava Kozlov was the recipient of a Todd White pass after the Atlanta pivot forced Dmitri Kalinin into a turnover and quickly found an uncovered Kozlov in the slot for a perfect wrist shot top shelf putting Atlanta in front 4:42 into the contest.

If there’s one characteristic to sum up this Ranger team thus far, it’s resilient. They don’t panic when the other team scores and stays with them. That was again on display when the resurgent Markus Naslund took a Marc Staal pass inside his own blueline and then outskated two Thrashers going coast to coast wiring a shot off the far post and in for his fourth extending his point streak to five (3-4-7).

That’s how the first ended tied. In the second, Atlanta handed the Rangers an early five-on-three but they got little done following a Naslund goal which got wiped out for a kick even though that didn’t seem the intention with it going off the heel into the net. Afterwards, they rarely tested Kari Lehtonen including a third straight power play which went for naught leaving it scoreless.

Despite the team firing blanks putting an MSG crowd to sleep, the two goalies took over with Lehtonen stopping all 14 his way while Henrik Lundqvist was also sharp denying all nine Atlanta shots sent his way.

It was during the Rangers’ fourth man-advantage in the period that a stellar defensive play by Zherdev saved a shorthanded bid and possibly a goal. With his teammates continuing to fiddle around with the puck, an aggressive Atlanta PK eventually broke out and sprung White for a breakaway. But as he was making his move, the hustling Russian skated full stride diving to make a clean poke check swiping the puck without taking a penalty keeping the game tied.

“The power play might be the simplest thing to play on the ice,” Renney duly noted. “We find a way to make it hard.”