Things are looking grim in Rangerland. With a chance to climb within 1 point of the 8th placed Bruins the Rangers instead fell further back in the standings as the Thrashers…yes, the THRASHERS, leap-frogged us for 9th. It was a rather difficult game to judge tonight because I think we can all agree that the Rangers, by and large, were the better team. They had a territorial advantage, they had a shot advantage, they had some great scoring chances (though the Blues probably had the better chances, albeit fewer) and all in all played a pretty good game. Unfortunately it was their rock that let them down. Henrik Lundqvist was not good tonight. Dare I say he was terrible? Honestly, I would have probably pulled him after the second goal. Henrik was fighting the puck all night long, easy shots were flubbed, his glove hand was consistently lower than usual, and pucks just weren’t sticking to him. Lundqvist gave up a softie for the game winner, probably should have had the deflection goal that went in off of Reddens stick, and was not properly set for the Boyes goal. All in all I almost want to fault Torts for not pulling Henrik when he had the chance. Especially when the game winner was such a terrible goal for your goalie to give up. I understand the rationale though. He’s your guy, you want to win or lose with the best guy in net, sadly, today, it cost us. Henrik didn’t have it, and the Rangers couldn’t muster up enough offense to bail him out like he has bailed the team out countless times before. It’s that seemingly never ending paradigm this team has. Two things go right, one thing goes wrong. That thing goes right, the other 2 start failing us. Very rarely are we able to muster up a full 60 minute effort with all the cylinders clicking. That could be a result of having a deeply flawed team, or it could be the result of having deeply flawed leadership. At this point, I am thinking a little bit of both.

This next game against the Bruins is quite simply a must win. If the Rangers lose in regulation, they will be 5 points back with the Bruins having 1 game in hand. If the Bruins go .500 the rest of the way they would finish with 87 points. In order to overtake them, the Rangers would need to go 8-1-1 in their final 10 games, a daunting task to ask of any team, especially one as bi-polar as this one. Let’s see how this all plays out.

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Gonna have to keep this one short, it’s 3am and I am pretty tired. With such a huge game tonight, I figured the Rangers would try to pound the Habs into the ground. We can’t keep up with their speed, but we could definitely hit them and hit them hard causing turnovers. Not only did we not do that, but it looked like we really didn’t want to win this game all that desperately. The Habs wanted it more. They wanted to win the board battles more, they wanted to win the battles in front of the net more, they wanted to win the races for loose pucks more, they wanted to defend more. Just about the only place where we wanted it more was our goalie, who only gave up 2 deflection goals and other than that was stellar. But Henrik can’t score you goals. Henrik can’t motivate you to get off your ass and go win a battle or 2. That needs to be up to each and every individual player. That needs to be up to the captain, and yes, that needs to be up to the coach. It’s got to piss you off that this team can come out so flat against in so many important games throughout the year. I get that it’s going to happen, but it can’t happen in games that are just about do or die. If the Rangers want to do anything in the playoffs, they need to be thinking about finishing in 7th, not 8th. 7th place will probably get you a matchup against either the Pens or the Devils, 2 damn good teams, sure, but nothing like the juggernaut Caps. If the Rangers want to make any noise, they need to do it by winning these games, by leapfrogging the teams ahead of them, by showing that they give a damn about things like that instead of the whimper we saw tonight.

I am disgusted, and I am sure you all are as well. It’s gut check time boys, get your heads out of your asses and put together some wins.

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Apparently their pissing match with DirecTV is finally over. I will be able to watch tomorrows game, and, Lundqvist-willing, the playoffs.

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Over on the message boards the benching of Sean Avery has gotten some pretty animated responses, nearly all of which were along the lines of crucifying the coach. I for one happened to agree with the coach as the play of Sean has been severely lacking for the bulk of this season. I would say out of the past 30 games or so Sean has been almost a complete non factor in about 25 of those games. Not really generating much in the offensive zone, not throwing other people off their games, in short, his game sagged quite substantially. People say that Torts has neutered him, and I say BS, especially when I hear comments from the coach where they want him to be more aggressive, make more plays, to do more things, and all we see is less, less, less. To me that screams of a player who is on cruise control and needs a kick in the pants. Torts gave Sean that kick with a pretty emphatic (and deserved) benching against the Thrashers.

It seemed to me that Torts picked his game very smartly on when to bench Sean. It was a game where he knew with or without Sean, the Rangers would still have a good chance to win, and he played the odds. It’s tough to bench him against the better teams in the league, which we have been playing for most of the past 2-3 weeks, but against a team like Atlanta, you can take a risk there, and it paid off in spades this afternoon against a very good Philadelphia Flyers team.

It’s also worth noting that Chris Drury has been playing some pretty good hockey of late. Not great hockey, and definitely not “C” worthy hockey, but much better than what we have seen over the bulk of this season. Chris has played his usual stellar PK, while managing to put up 8 points in his past 11 games (3 goals, 5 assists). Those certainly are numbers you would expect to see on a consistent basis from a guy making as much money as he is, and more importantly, from a guy who has been more or less a perennial 50-70 point player (8 points in 11 games is 60 point production over a full season). I give him a lot of crap, but I also want to point out when he is playing pretty well. Keep is up Chris, in fact, give me more while you’re at it.

Rangers have a Versus game on Tuesday, it’s a double whammy for me, since I have a game myself so I can’t even catch the radio broadcast of it. Let’s hope for a nice convincing Rangers win at home against a beatable, but red hot Montreal team.

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Even with tonights win the Rangers are precariously close to falling completely out of contention. With only 14 games left in the season the Rangers are 3 full points behind the Bruins, who have 2 games in hand. That could balloon up to 7 points in a hurry. *gulp*. With such a daunting task in front of them, give credit to the Rangers who had control of this game pretty much since minute 1. They outforechecked the Thrashers, they out scored them, they out defended them, and they out goaltended them. It’s not really all that surprising though, since the Thrashers lost Kovalchuk they look like a very poor team on paper, one would only imagine to see such results play themselves out. Give credit to the Rangers and coach Tortorella, in a very questionable move, he sent a message to his team that nobody is beyond being sat, even at this important juncture. Torts decided to sit Sean Avery for this game, and frankly it probably was the right decision. Sean hasn’t been a very good player for us for much of this season. He seems to score 3 points in a game, or do absolutely nothing. Far too often this year he has been a ghost on the ice. You don’t see him getting people pissed off, you don’t see him making player, you just see him skating around doing more or less nothing. Torts sat Avery, and the Rangers responded. It’s not so much about the message to Avery as much as it is the message to the team. What the frak up, or we are going home. Looks like the Rangers have no intention of going into that sweet night quietly.

One player who seems to stand out in a positive way almost every game, at least to me, is Artem Anisimov. I guess you have to appreciate smart, subtle play to really “get” Anisimovs game. Arty is a guy who can dangle around you, for sure, but what you have to appreciate is the way he reads the play and reacts. Kid is probably the smartest player on the Rangers right now, and he’s only what…22? That’s incredible. As his body fills out, and as he gets more confidence in his offensive game, I think this kid might become our version of Pavel Datsyuk, sans the 90+point seasons. A smart, defensively responsible player, who makes those around him much better. A guy you can count on in all situations to be a productive player. I think Arty can probably be a 30-30 guy for us while putting up Selke like performances defensively. But, no pressure.

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At least in the previous games, I could hang my hat on the fact that the Rangers played pretty well against some good teams, but just couldn’t finish the deal. Today was no such thing. The Rangers were absolutely horrific in a game they absolutely had to have. The Devils have been pretty damn awful for a long while now. They don’t play very good hockey, they don’t have that great of a goalie…today was the perfect day to go into NJ and win a game in a convincing manner. Instead they decided to play like retards, and got burned time, and time again. It’s tough to kill Henrik for the goals he gave up, there were deflections, screens, both, etc. Odd man rushes out the wazoo, and poor coverage pretty much all over the ice. This looked like a bunch of kids who dont really know the game of hockey instead of a team with a lot of veterans. But, we’ve been down this road before haven’t we? We’ve seen the Rangers play like crap in games they could have, and should have won. We’ve seen the Rangers simply not show up for games, we’ve seen them be stupid, we’ve seen all this garbage pedaled to us for years now. Why is this any different.

That’s all, I’m going to bed. Maybe I’ll come back tomorrow when I am in a better mood.

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Amid the slew of negativity flowing around Ranger land, let me just add this. We are continuing to get points, and keep games very close against teams WAY ahead of us in the standings. That’s about as much as you can ask for. Rangers weren’t going to come into this stretch and dominate, but they needed to pick up points, and with tonights point, they are still right in the thick of it.

Problem with tonights game was the lack of quality chances, Rangers had maybe 5 or 6. That’s not near enough, you want to hit double digits every night, but these days the Rangers are happy with 7 or 8.

The goalies were both outstanding, as you would expect considering who was in net, so it’s tough to put the puck in the net, but you need to at least put yourself in the position to do so, and while I think I have made my undying support for Torts perfectly clear, I still think he is majorly screwing the pooch with his incessant line changing. Enough Torts. You’ve had the same lineup more or less, for the entire season. There hasn’t been a rash of injuries, not a huge amount of turnover…you should know what you have by now. You should know who plays well with whom. You should do what pairs work, and what pairs don’t. I’m all for riding the hot hand, but you don’t mix and match lines from the drop of the puck till the final buzzer, all you do is hinder chemistry and possible scoring chances. I love Torts, but right now he is not giving his team a good chance to win with these stupid line changes of his.

It should also be pointed out that Brandon Dubinsky scored his goal crashing the net as the team has now adopted an Umbrella style power play. Personally, this has always been my favorite way to run a power play, it spreads the defense out, and it give you a lot of places to create movement for, while attacking the front of the net. The basic principal is to keep 2 men near the net, and have them converge on the net as the shot is taken, no matter where it is taken. The other 3 skaters skate around and try to find a lane to shoot at. It is simple, it is basic, and it gets the job done, particularly when you don’t have a set person to take the shot on the Power Play.

Finally, it seems the Fire Sather march went on rather well. Somewhere around 200 people showed up, a little low, but about what I was expecting. Great to hear they did their duty and showed up. Would have been nice if the number was closer to 500-1000 though. Hopefully Dolan was made aware of it.

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Tomorrow (Sunday, March 7th) is the Fire Sather march. It begins at 5:00pm across the street from MSG on the east side of 7th avenue between 31st and 32nd streets. I would attend, but it’s a pretty long drive from here in Atlanta. I will post video of it when I get that passed on to me. This is a worthwhile thing to do, so I suggest people give it a shot.

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That the game was so close was very unexpected, but the result was pretty much a given. The Rangers just don’t match up against the Caps. They are better than us in most facets of the game, and their speedy forwards give our defense fits (hell, which team don’t they give fits). If it were up to me, I would have given Gaborik the night off as well, giving him 1 extra day to rest up before the Sabres game should be the way to go, especially with such a winnable stretch run after this Sabres game. They are playing some very beatable teams coming up, so there is no need whatsoever to rush him back. The Rangers have done better than expected here, with 3 points out of the last 3 games, all against the top end teams in the East, so it’s really hard to kill the team for yet another shutout against.

With that said though, I do have 1 bone to pick with Torts. Why oh why do you keep changing up the lines every god damn period? I love ya Torts, you know you’re my choice to be the coach of the Rangers, but that madness has to stop. You don’t get any chemistry going whatsoever by continually changing the lines around. As a hockey player myself, I can tell you I hate having to play with new linemates all the time, and I think teams are best served by having set lines, and riding them for games, not periods.

It has been fairly disappointing to watch Jokinen play these past few games. I know he’s put up some points here and there, but I don’t think hes playing good hockey. Frankly I don’t really see him as a center, in much the same way Dubinsky isn’t really a center. Jokinen just does not make the players around him better, in which case he’s probably better off playing the wing on the top line with Prospal in the middle and Gaborik on the right side. I know a lot of people want him back, but don’t count me in among that group. To me he’s a decent 2nd line player who is probably going to command middle of the row top line money. That is something we can not afford.

Tomorrows game is huge, Rangers need to pick up at least a point and keep close to the bottom end of the playoff picture. If we can do that, then the stretch after this Sabres game gives us an opportunity to make up some ground, and even potentially put some distance between us and some of the teams we are competing against.

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