You know those kids, the ones who constantly bug you on the plane by talking all loud, or constantly ask you stupid questions, or throw peanuts at you from the seat behind you? How about those kids in the supermarket that throw tantrums and just can’t behave themselves for 30 freaking seconds? You know what I am talking about right? I mean, we have all seen, dealt with, and contemplated heaving an eggplant at these kids right? Good, so this way I know my analogy will work.

Blame the parents.

Can you really blame the kid who constantly throws peanuts if his/her mother is reading a book instead of telling the kid to stop misbehaving? Can you really blame the kid who throws the tantrum in the supermarket if the parent wont tell them to shut the hell up? Can you really blame the ticked off blogger who heaves the eggplant at the annoying squirt who won’t shut up? Well, ok, maybe that last part you can actually put the blame on the blogger, but the first two parts definitely are answered no in my opinion. You need to look at the parents, the ones with whom these kids look up to, who they respect, who, one might say, set the parameters for what the children do.

So why is it when the Rangers go down 5 on 3 for the 4th time in 3 games does nobody want to blame Renney? Ok, well, most of the boards are blaming Renney, so, good for you guys, I am right there with you. Look, the Rangers played very well for 2 periods, but once again, they took way too many penalties, at the most inopportune times, and they, once again, came out looking totally flat to start a game. They have been last in goals scored for just about the entire season, and when they havent been in last, they have been in 2nd to last by a goal or 2. This is the same team boasting 2 guys who have scored over 600 goals, and 4 other players that have scored 29 or more goals at least once in the past 2 years. Sooner or later you need to look at the coach, and ask yourself, is he the best man to lead this team to the promise land?

I say no, and here is why. Tom Renney has consistently shown an inability to properly react to game situations in a way to help his team. How many times have you seen the Rangers go down 2 or 3 quick goals, how many times does he call a timeout right away? How many times has he tapped Colton Orr’s shoulder and said, Colton, you need to wake this team up, go out there and break a face, it will wake these morons up. Once? Twice? How many times has Tom Renney chewed out his team for one of their numerous flat and uninterested displays on the ice? No, he waits till intermission to try to sort things out. That lets things go from bad to worse. What we need is a coach capable of chewing these guys out when they are flat, lazy, and taking stupid penalties, and equally capable of putting praise on the guys who are doing a great job out there. I have said for a while that Jim Schoenfeld is the man to lead us. I stand by that thought process. Tom Renney is ideally suited to be the friendly assistant coach all the players love and respect, but he is not the guy who is going to get the most out of his players night in and night out.

Blame Renney, and Blame Sather for not recognizing this as of yet.

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Rangers sure had their chances in that period. They got a nice little cycle game going, they controlled the puck, they drew powerplays, that didnt give up too much (except for that play right at the end of the period), but yet again, the offense fails to bail out the defense. A big old zero up there playing against an AHL goalie. I dont care what the numbers say, Conklin is mediocre, his rebound control is almost Fleuryesque. Rangers arent getting to those loose pucks right when they get their chances, and when they are, they are shooting it wide.

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Wanna know what the difference was in that period between what we saw against the Habs and what we’ve seen now for about 2 weeks? Offensive zone pressure. Against the Habs, when we weren’t killing penalties, we had the puck at even strength in their zone for just about every second we weren’t killing penalties. Tonight, the puck is in our zone, and is in our zone a lot. We are taking a lot of low quality shots on goal, which are easily being repelled and brought back the other way, rather than creating a forecheck and cycling. By the way, want to know why getting rid of Malik and Strudwick is my priority # 1? Simple, watch the Malkin goal. When do you ever see a defenseman go out to pressure guys with the puck that far out? Never, because that is the forwards responsibility. Also Greg Moore was just chillaxing in the slot without even bothering to skate and stop Malkin. Just a horrendous display.

Get Malik off this friggin team.

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Please click here to read Part 1 on how to fix the Rangers.

Hopefully you had the time to read Part 1 on how I would fix the Rangers. That was kind of Plan A. Should that be unable to work, I offer a few Plan B’s. Hopefully one of them might work.

Plan B-1:
Clone Sean Avery.

You all know the numbers by now. With Sean Avery in the lineup the Rangers are something like 412-1-7, and without him they are something like 0-9,842,101-1. Err, maybe my math is off, meh, either way, when he is in there, we win, when he isn’t we lose. So why not just go to the extreme? Clone the guy. I mean, he already does everything for this team, why not just have a team full of Sean Averys? Makes sense to me. In fact, I went to my neighborhood Zoltar machine:

Which, after quite a few quarters, and a disturbing glimpse into my own personal future, I was able to finagle the following picture out of the machine:

So, there you have it, an army of Sean Averys at our side, and no other team would stand a chance. Though the slight flaw in this plan is eventually the Averys will get so sick of their trash talking that they will wear out their welcomes, leading to every other team in the NHL to have a Sean Avery, except for us, in 3 years time. Sadly that means despite winning the cup, we go through a 15 year drought without sniffing the playoffs because we improved every other team with those moves.

Plan B-2:
A REAL home ice advantage.

My 2nd backup plan is for the NHL to institute a new policy. All New York Rangers home games will only last one period. Following completion of a 60 minute game, the Rangers talk to the refs and decide which of the 3 period they actually want to count. Sounds fair to me.

Plan B-3:
You CAN teach an old dog new tricks.

The Rangers constantly take idiotic penalties. They constantly make the wrong play when covering guys in their own zone, they constantly pass when they should shoot. Practicing doesn’t seem to help with these guys, and losing doesn’t seem to make them want to change their ways. So I propose we have every Rangers player on the ice wear an electric dog collar. Whenever they make a bad play, Tom Renney pushes the button, and the entire team gets shocked. How’s that for accountability? You screw up, you get zapped, and so does your whole team. Think Marek Malik would be ok with an up the middle pass that gets picked off then? Not when Martin Straka murders him the next time he visits the bench.

Well, that’s it for me fellas. I had a few more ideas, but this already has taken way too much time outta my day. Hope you enjoyed it. Now think up your own ideas, go to NYRangersCast, and submit them.

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