It was worth the wait, but he was finally needed.

And as always, the New York Rangers are still looking for answers on winning hockey games.

Despite the fact that the Rangers were blown out 6-0 by the Philadelphia Flyers at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night, I was excited to hear what was happening as I was listening to 1050 ESPN's (WEPN-AM, New York) game coverage feed on SIRIUS XM Satellite Radio during my drive from Phoenix to Las Vegas earlier this evening.  After browsing thru the channels and noticed that the Rangers were down 4-0 in the 2nd period, I had a funny feeling that Rangers head coach John Tortorella finally decided to pull starting goaltender Henrik Lundqvist and go with former Alaska Nanook Chad Johnson.

When I flipped it on to XM 206, that's exactly what I heard from Rangers' radio play-by-play announcer Kenny Albert.  Chad Johnson making his National Hockey League debut.

Enough said.

Lundqvist would play the entire first period and give up the game's first three goals.  But Chad would start the second period and played the rest of the game.

On his very first NHL shot on goal, Chad gave up a goal to veteran Flyers LW Simon Gagne to make it a 4-0 Flyers lead.  It would be 5-0 after another Gagne goal and that's how it would end the 2nd period.  When the stats came out, it was impressive...16 of 18 shots saved.  And that's just the second period!

The Flyers didn't get their first shot on goal in the 3rd period until 11:30 into the final stanza, which ironically, that shot on goal was scored by none other than Gagne himself, giving him the hat trick.  Chad would only see two shots on goal in that period, so overall he went 17 of 20.  

Not bad for his first NHL experience.  At the post-game press conference, Tortorella felt bad for putting Chad out onto the ice in a position that the Rangers have experienced these last few weeks.

"It's a tough way to start when Dubi (Brandon Dubinsky) turns it over," said Tortorella. "The guy (Gagne) walks in on a breakaway - pretty good player.  But I thought he settled in and made some good saves.  

"You know, its a tough position for a kid to come into his first game, into this storm or whatever you want to call it.  But I like the way he settled in and made some good saves along the way there.  So we'll see how we go about our business there, and we'll go tomorrow."

On a side note, there are now two former Nanooks on the current Rangers' roster, Johnson and Aaron Voros.  Anchorage native Brandon Dubinsky is also on the team.

Lorenzo