These were Brandon Dubinsky’s thoughts when Flyers captain Mike Richards challenged him to drop his gloves with just under four minutes remaining and the Flyers down by two goals in yesterday’s 3-1 Rangers’ victory at the Garden:
“He came up and asked it I wanted to fight,” said Dubinsky, who previously had thrown down with Richards in the Sarah Palin puck-drop game in Philadelphia on Oct. 11, 2008. “I was a little confused with [under] five minutes to go why one of their best players would want to take himself out of the game, but then I thought, ‘I’ll take that trade-off. I’ll take him off the ice.’ ”
Dubinsky, who hadn’t fared too well in that initial bout, unleashed a combination of lefts and rights to score a decisive decision over the Canadian Olympian.
“Lefts and rights? I don’t know what I’d call it,” said Dubinsky, who played a hard-edged game throughout. “I guess the message is that we’re going to respond, and we’re going to be there step for step with them.
“If they want to play a physical game, we are going to play physical right back. If they want to mix it up, we are going to mix it up,” he added. “We have guys in here who are willing to do that and guys that are good at it. We are not going to back down.
“We are going to continue to fight, scratch and claw every game here to find a way to get into the playoffs.”
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Philadelphia pugilist Ryan Cote, who had been scratched in 32 straight, played 4:07 over nine shifts in his first game since Dec. 21.
“I wish he had played more,” said coach John Tortorella. “He’s a non-factor. . . . That’s no disrespect to him.”
No, not at all.
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The Rangers went primarily with four defensemen in the third, giving Michael Del Zotto 3:00 and Matt Gilroy 30 seconds of ice. Dan Girardi, who had one of his most impressive games of the season, played 11:13 in the third (22:18 overall) paired with Marc Staal (8:59, 23:57) while Michal Rozsival (7:13, 24:20) skated with Wade Redden (7:22, 19:01).
Del Zotto, physical all afternoon, played a total of 17:14 while Gilroy, who was pulled from the second unit power play point in favor of Redden, got just 7:52 for the afternoon.
Brian Boyle was impressive in his 8:19, taking the body, working well down low.
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The Rangers were 1-for-4 on the power play and penalty kill, yielding one in the first to Danny Briere following a dreadful Olli Jokinen slashing penalty.
The Blueshirts, who had been blanked in consecutive games by the Flyers (6-0 at the Garden on Dec. 30, 2-0 in Philadelphia on Jan. 21) broke through on Sean Avery‘s goal at 1:53 to break the scoreless streak at 177:07. Rozsival scored on the power play 3:01 later.
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The Rangers, who have 13 games remaining, play three of the next four at home (Montreal, St. Louis, at Boston, the Islanders) before six straight on the road beginning March 25 (Devils, Toronto, Islanders, Tampa Bay, Florida, Buffalo). They then play the Maple Leafs at the Garden before closing with a home-and-home with the Flyers, April 9 at the Garden and April 11 in Philadelphia.