Well, I predicted an 8-2 drubbing, instead I got a 2-1 nail-biter…

Unfortunately that was the only video of the famous “just a bit outside” quote that I could find. Anyway, this game wasn’t all that great. For about the 4th game in a row the best line on the ice was once again the 3rd line, which seemingly didn’t get enough minutes, and again for the 4th game in a row the Rangers found themselves down 2 men for almost 2 minutes. Discipline was severely lacking tonight for sure, but at least part of the blame goes to the refs who truly called a terrible game. I am saving a piece for tomorrow or day after for the refs, and trust me, a nice dissertation is coming on that topic.

Defensively the Rangers played pretty strong for all 3 periods, even the bad 2nd was played well in their own zone (for the most part), and the goaltending we got tonight was back-to-normal typical Henrik Lundqvist. Offensively though, the Rangers still did not seem in synch. They got some chances, sure, but they didn’t cycle the puck, and sustain the pressure enough for my liking against a severely depleted Sabers team.

I am not hanging as much on this win as I should. I think the Rangers needed to come out here and make a statement, by only taking 2 or 3 penalties, and just wiping the floor with these Sabers, instead they won a game you expected them to win, and didn’t really do it in a convincing manner.

So I guess the best way to describe this win, is with 1 word. Meh.

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Look, I know you all want to kill Jagr for taking the hook and the hold. They both qualify as “lazy” penalties. But for once, I am coming to the captains defense. Neither of those were penalties guys, not by a long shot.

Here is something you may not know about some of the rules in the NHL. In order for a holding penalty to be called. YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO HOLD THE FREAKING GUY!!! Furthermore, in order for a hooking penalty to be called YOU ACTUALLY HAVE TO HOOK THE FREAKING GUY!!!

Just atrocious reffing the past dozen or so games, I can’t even begin to express my disgust at the reffing crews.

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All I was doing while watching that period was to sit back in my chair, touching my fingers together, saying “Excellent” over and over again.

I guess it is a testament to how much of a lunatic Ranger fan I am, but before the game I made sure to scrape off the snow that had accumulated on my dish. No freaking snow was going to stop me from watching the turnaround. As you know I predicted this to be the game we turn it all around. An explosion of offense, defense, and goaltending. Well, not exactly an offensive explosion in that period, but I thought we played well in all the other facets. Good period, keep it going boys.

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So here I am, nearly 3 in the morning, catching up on some paperwork I needed to look at for work, when something kinda dawned on me. More of a feeling than an idea. I had this feeling that tonight against the Sabers, the Rangers are going to turn it all around. Why? I don’t have the slightest clue. I mean there is nothing for me to base this on, particularly with the team playing as putrid as it has been lately. But here I stand going out on a limb. I think tonight the Rangers season turns around.

Rangers 8, Sabers 2.

Of course if I am wrong, I place full blame on the Mars corporation, because I may be on a bit of a sugar high from a few Twix bars.

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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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So, if you read my “how to fix the rangers” piece from yesterday, or my post game rant from the Flyers game, you’ll know what I am about to say. The Rangers have yet to play a complete 60 minute game in all 3 zones, barring the effort against Toronto (with a very lackadaisical effort from the Leafs), let alone string it together for several games. Well, that is still true in this one, despite winning convincingly, but 8 out of 9 ain’t bad, and it certainly gives us something to build on.

	First Period	Second Period	Third Period
Offense
Defense
Goaltending

As you can see from the little table above, I felt the Rangers played very well in all facets, except for offensively in the 3rd. They really had no chances, and most definitely took their foot off the pedal, big time. The Rangers played such an effective game because they were able to control the puck in the offensive zone for such long stretches. It seemed every other shift was spent in the Montreal zone (when the Rangers weren’t killing a penalty that is), followed by the Habs having to dump the puck in, change, and get back defensively for the next Rangers push. THAT is Rangers hockey. Not up and down trading chances hockey (Tampa Bay/Carolina Hockey). Not playing in our own zone for 18 minutes then jumping on a turnover and getting a goal (Devils Hockey). No, we are built for puck possession, then 5-man regroup and solid defensive zone coverage.

A big thing in this game though were the penalties. The Rangers, I believe, took 8 penalties, while the Habs took only 3. This was not a well called game. In fact this wasn’t even a poorly called game. This was a one-sided, atrocious display of officiating, and it had me literally screaming when my team is winning by a large margin and they call Marcel Hossa on a slash for trying to play the puck. I haven’t said much about the reffing this year, surely less than last year at least, but my God, this was friggin horrible. Once again I would send in a complaint if I was the GM. The squeaky wheel gets the oil, and the Rangers need to show the NHL they are sick of getting shafted by the refs.

Personally I thought the Rangers got called for 3 atrocious penalties, and they let 3 blatant Habs penalties go uncalled. You should have seen roughly a 5-5 or 5-6 or 6-5 penalty distribution in this game. One team should not have had nearly 3 times the power plays as the other, especially with the high degree of blatant stuff that was going on out there going uncalled for the Habs.

I was very impressed with most of our players. Marcel Hossa had a very strong game once again, and continues to make himself indispensable out there. You can’t take this guy out, he kills penalties very well, and he controls the puck single handedly for entire shifts. That immediately is a defensive gain right there. I know we are banged up right now, but in a week or so when we should be healthy, this is the lineup I would like to see:

Straka Gomez Jagr - 20-22 minutes
Avery Drury Shanny - 16-18 minutes
Prucha Dubinsky Dawes - 10-12 minutes
Hossa Betts Orr - 7-9 minutes

Basically the same lineup we have been asking to see for a while now, in fact it might be just 1 player off from my opening day suggested lineup (Callahan < -> Dawes).

Before anyone shouts at me for flip flopping or being wrong or whatever, I want you to carefully re-read my proposal to fix the Rangers. Note the bottom of each and every section. My first suggestion was to fix the problem with the #6 defenseman (which still needs to be done), and see if the Rangers can find their game with 1 small ancillary move. Then my suggestion was to fire the coach, again, nothing to do with the roster, and see if that lets the Rangers find their game. My final suggestion, to tear it all down, was predicated on neither of the previous moves being effective AND the Rangers being out of contention by the trade deadline. I still stand by that thought process. Start small, fix that minor thing, then go bigger, then go massive. Don’t do something massive right off the bat.

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Looks like Renneys theory that an all kid line would be suicide is proven wrong. Dubinsky Prucha and Dawes have been by far and away the best line out there, even if they didn’t score 2 goals. They just arent getting enough ice time (or so it appears) for my liking, but are controlling the puck, playing solid in their own zone, and generating a lot of offense out there.

While there was a lot to like love in what the Rangers did out there, make no mistake about it, there were some terrible plays as well. I’m not sure the exact total, and I dont have time to look it up, but I think they took 4 or 5 penalties in that period alone. That is not going to cut it, particularly 2 5 on 3 advantages, both for well over a minute.

Part of the blame belongs to the refs, who are calling a sickeningly one-sided game, from waiving off a clear goal (later reviewed and overturned), to not calling damn near anything on the Habs, to at least 2 phantom calls on the Rangers, one of which led to a 5 on 3. I am very angry at the way the refs are clearly trying to give this one to the Habs, call a fair game refs, thats your bleeping jobs.

However part of the blame also resides on the Rangers. Jagr should know by now what a hook is (though the call on Hossa was mystifying to say the least), and Rozsival has nobody to blame for shooting the puck out of the rink in his own zone. Discipline fellas, discipline.

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