And now for something completely different...

Aziz By Aziz
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on December 19, 2007 at 11:00 AM, updated December 19, 2007 at 11:45 AM

Phew. That was getting ugly. The Rangers' 4-0 shutout of the Penguins last night should make everyone feel at least a little better.

And so the team's Jekyll and Hyde act continues. Last night they looked crisp, the lines worked a little better, and Henrik -- who played, despite some buzz about a potential injury bigger than just the flu -- didn't have too tough a night in notching an 18-save shutout against a team with a lot of offensive firepower. All in all, last night was the confidence booster this team needed. As John Dellapina insinuates, the game may be a signal that Renney's lines are the right combination. We hesitate to put too much stock into any one game, but everyone seemed to click last night.

The Hollweg-Betts-Orr line continues to surprise everyone -- this time completely shutting down Sid the Kid -- and Scott Gomez continues to be excellent, this time scoring two goals in his top-line role.

As Steve Zipay notes, Hollweg -- who was benched for the previous game -- came back very nicely. In a separate entry, the Zipper's game recap rightly credits Gomez for being able to convert twice in one game and sparking the team to the win.

Larry Brooks gets it right, as he often does:

This was a Rangers in 60 show, a one-hour slice of 2007-08 that represents the recipe for this particular squad's success...the 4-0 victory at the Garden over the Penguins was the sum of a down-and-dirty, detail-oriented performance pretty much from the first shift to the last in which the Blueshirts paid scrupulous attention to their work on the defensive side of the puck and of the ice.
Meanwhile, we don't know that we completely believe the write-up that last night means the Rangers have "returned to form" -- we'll leave that for a bigger sample size -- but it's certainly a sign that the team isn't letting the slump bring them too far down the Conference standings. Lynn Zinser describes how credit was passed around the Rangers' locker room after the game, while Sam Weinman notes the top line's effectiveness.

By the way, the schedule doesn't get any easier: this three-games-in-four-days stretch means the Rangers get one day to rest up before taking on the Northwest Division-leading Minnesota Wild in St. Paul, and then head to Denver the next day to tackle the Avalanche. We think this consistent work will be good for this team. Though they'll be tired when they take on the 'lanche, consistent play is better than long layoffs, especially when coming off a nice victory. Maybe they can start to build some momentum. The upcoming contests against Western Conference opponents will be a good measuring stick as to whether this team is the one we saw last night, or the one we suffered through watching over the previous couple of weeks.