Rangers, Blues tangle at MSG

Hockey Betting Lines

03/18/2010 - (Sportsbook Betting Lines) - A pair of teams trying to break into the playoff picture in their respective conferences will meet tonight in the Big Apple as the New York Rangers host the St. Louis Blues at Madison Square Garden.

The Rangers have 71 points and are three behind Boston for the eighth and final postseason berth in the East. Meanwhile, St. Louis is seven points back of Detroit for the Western Conference's last playoff berth.

Neither New York nor St. Louis helped their postseason chances on Tuesday, as they both dropped home contests in regulation.

New York was handed a 3-1 setback by Montreal despite heading into the third period tied with the Canadiens at 1-1. Sergei Kostitsyn's goal in the third gave Montreal the lead for good and Tomas Plekanec added an empty-netter.

Sean Avery scored the lone goal for the Rangers, giving him three goals in New York's last two games. Henrik Lundqvist was strong between the pipes with 32 saves in the losing effort.

"We just have to approach every game like it is the last," said Lundqvist of his team's playoff push.

Lundqvist, who is expected to get his 61st start of the season tonight, has held opponents to two goals or fewer in nine of his last 11 games. He has a 6-3-2 record with a 2.36 goals against average and a .940 save percentage over the span. The Swedish backstop was saddled with a loss in his only career appearance against St. Louis.

Meanwhile, the Blues were dealt a loss by visiting Colorado on Tuesday as Peter Mueller recorded two goals and an assist to lead the Avalanche to the 5-3 win at Scottrade Center.

Alexander Steen, Patrik Berglund and David Perron scored for the Blues, who have lost two straight. Erik Johnson registered two assists, and Chris Mason stopped only 21-of-26 shots in defeat.

Tonight marks the finale of a three-game homestand for the Rangers, who are just 15-16-6 as the host this year. However, St. Louis has a solid 20-11-4 record as the guest.

The Rangers lost a 4-1 decision in St. Louis on January 16, giving the Blues their sixth win in the last nine meetings in this series.

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FOOTBALL TRASH TALK

NFL Football Trash Talk

Trash talk has a place in every competitive endeavor (except baseball; those stirrup-wearers are too busy chewing on their sunflower seeds and their supplements to worry about what their opponents are doing).

Fantasy sports is no exception. Any intelligent discussion of the subject would probably start with a thesis statement or a definition of terms. Thankfully, this wont be an intelligent discussion.

Let me just say that I am happy to take a place in this space alongside my talented colleagues, even our commissioner. (You should see how she bleats like a demented paper boy about league fees on our fantasy site).

Trash talking, I would argue, is primarily about amusing your friends, their sheeplike demeanors and sloping foreheads notwithstanding. The best place I have found for football trash talking is at www.SportsAlarm.com.

Beyond the entertainment factor, though, I would recognize that the sophomoric ritual has one advantage, when properly applied. It magnifies your fantasy triumphs and mitigates your fantasy failures by transforming the eventual point total into an afterthought. Winning makes it seem like your opponent really is a truss-owning, lapel-pin-wearing nitwit. And in defeat, trash talk can be the air bag to break the fall from your hyperbolic heights. The plug-necked yahoos on your team, you can say, will be sacking groceries by the end of the season.

The best trash talk, in my view, is layered and nuanced. And it doesnt focus only on your opponents team. It picks apart your opponent. The idea is to create a shock-and-awe-scale blizzard of nonsense, and the goal is to make your opponent drop his hands from his keyboard in exasperation.

What team does your opponent root for? Accuse a Giants fan of having a Joe Namath pillowcase. Wheres your opponent from? Give a look of concern no matter his reply, then say, I'll try to type slower for you next time. Is your opponent into politics? Label everyone a tax-and-spend corporate shill.

Cap all that with a liberal application of irrelevance. For instance, dont just conclude by saying your opponent is a twerp who drafts like my grandmother. Say that your opponent is a sweater-wearing, eyebrow-plucking twerp who drafts his team about as well as Zsa Zsa Gabor gave acceptance speeches at the Oscars. By the time your foe makes sense of that, his starting running back will have had puppies.

But what about you? Hmm? Recall a memorable slam? Have a tried-and-true technique? Know someone who seems impervious to insult? Take a moment and tells us about it. Put together some (fit-for-publication) thoughts. You wont be too busy returning phone messages from your friends, Im sure, to reply.

In addition to the trash talking, the Sports Alarm has a huge gallery of high resolution pictures of beautiful women and models in bikinis. The most popular models are: Lindsay Lohan, Carrie Underwood, Alessandra Ambrosio, and Paris Hilton.