Just a heads up, while I will be watching the game tonight, I won’t have time to do a post game wrap, I’m feeling pretty sick at the moment so I want to get to bed as soon as the game is over. I’ll probably write something tomorrow evening if I am feeling better.

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This is a Rangers team that went toe to toe with the super powered offensive juggernaut Detroit Red Wings. This is a Rangers team that absolutely dominated the San Jose Sharks, also an offensive juggernaut. This is a Rangers team that outplayed a Ducks team that is as good an all around team as there is in the league. In each of these cases they did so by playing a very strong offensive game in addition to being responsible defensively.

Following tonight’s disastrous game against the Devils, Tom Renneys post game comments are as follows:

“What I feel is they’re programmaed in a certain way that’s not conducive to how we have to play to have success with this group. We’ve got to fight hard to break that habit. It’s no secret when we’ve had good games we’ve all played the same way. There’s enough good reference points to recongize that we know how to play this game, play it well and compete with anybody. We’ve also had something creep into our game and that’s a lack of commitment to the detail of playing. We end up cheating because we’re not a high-scoring team. It’s plain and simple. Until we get our heads around winning 2-1, we’re going to have nights like this all the time.“

So, Tom Renneys solution is to get even MORE defensive. To further neuter this team, to further remove any semblance of creativity from guys like Dubinsky and Zherdev. Why has Dubinsky been slumping so badly? Interestingly enough his extreme down turn coincides perfectly with the benching Tom Renney gave him when he was over aggressive, and playing his skill game which caused a few turnovers. This is back when the Rangers actually played reasonably good hockey. So, he has already neutered Dubinsky, now his eye is on Zherdev. Guess who rode the pine in the 3rd? The team leading +/- forward Nikoali Zherdev. Z saw less than 4 minutes of ice time in the 3rd…why? Because he is our only creative offensive player, and you can’t have creative hockey under Tom Renney.

Sather said that he wanted to build an up tempo offensive team. Remember his preseason comments? He said he wants to be like the Penguins, he said that is the type of hockey that wins. Well Tom Renneys comments above say one of 2 things. Either Tom Renney believes Glen Sather did not give him a team capable of playing that type of hockey (IE, Sather sucks at his job), or Tom Renney is incapable of getting his team to play that kind of game. Either way if I were the GM I would fire Renney, because he is either calling me (the GM, not the blogger) a moron, or he is saying in no uncertain terms that he is incapable of getting this team to play that kind of hockey.

Are you listening Slats?

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The script was supposed to go something along the lines of…

The only thing better than getting Mark Teixeira under the tree this year was getting a Rangers team that has finally turned it around.

And so it seemed, for the first 20 or so minutes, the Rangers were getting some very good scoring chances to go with some very good goaltending and some….pretty good defense which all added up to a 3-0, and then a 4-0 lead. Of course these are Tom Renneys New York Rangers we’re talking about aren’t they? These aren’t guys who will see a floundering and suffering team and step on their throats, this is a team that takes their foot off the pedal and goes into defensive collapse mode anytime they take a lead of any sort. They seem content to run out the clock, and time after time after time after time they blow these leads. Remember last year when the Rangers had like 5 or 6 games in a row or something absurd like that where they blew 2 goal leads? Remember the 5-0 collapse to the Habs? Remember the 3 goal lead in the 3rd period the Rangers blew to the Lightning? What we saw tonight wasn’t and aberration folks, it was a culmination of 3 years of Tom Renney hockey. When you have the lead, you run out the clock. The bigger the lead, the more defensive you go. But that’s the problem isn’t it? It’s not what got you there, it’s the opposite of what got you there. When you go up 4-0 with some really good scoring chances, you shouldn’t take the foot off the pedal and allow the other team to dictate play, you should ram the puck down their effing throats and make them choke to death on it.

Let’s just say I am a big time believer in the old adage that the best defense is a good offense. I am also a firm believe that the Rangers have the offense to go toe to toe with any team in this league, what I am beyond convinced of though, is that Tom Renney is not the coach to lead us to the promise land.

How sure am I of this? On both my regular message board haunts, I have been, for 3 years now, screaming at the top of my lungs that Tom Renney is just not the guy for this team. Well, take a look at this thread over on the HFBoards Rangers section, in it, towards the end, you will see more and more people who were hefty on the side of Renney start to throw in the towel. And on my other regular haunt, the ECSF boards there is another thread where more and more folks are jumping on the fire bandwagon. Now I should warn you, this thread is definitely NOT SAFE FOR WORK, there is a lot of obscene language, but since I am ok with that, I will let you decide whether or not this thread is for you.

In the latter thread there is a post by Savior-Self that I wanted to highlight. The reason being that, despite his bizarre, and often times psychotic style of posting, he has always been an ardent supporter of Renneys. We have had many, many….MANY heated arguments over the years on Renney, with me coming on the side of, “he sucks”, and him coming on the side of, “he is the best thing to happen to this franchise”.

Here is his edited post:

I’m not the type that flops around like an emotional wreck after games like these… but that said, I’m personally done as far as supporting Tom Renney goes…

Look… there’s a reason this team has proven to be a cohesive trainwreck time and time again under this man … and that’s because the f***face has the squad sit back on their thumbs anytime they’re so lucky as to gain momentum or get a lead…

He doesn’t have the balls to play for the W. He gameplans around gimmick points, even when playing at home. He f***s too much with the line combinations, not enough with the powerplay, and way too much with any ounce of grit the team has in their loins. Maybe, just maybe, Tom IS the reason we can’t score. The reason why our players don’t click with one another, can’t set each other up, constantly pass up shots, and don’t generate legitimate scoring chances in any tempo of any game.

Only recently have I seen a consistent forecheck. Only recently have I seen the promised, improved breakout. Only recently have I seen this team execute both aspects only to fall back into their shell immediately after…

You begin to understand the p***y mentality when you realize that they’ve been neutered into playing this particularly inept way…

I love the man’s brainpower and character, but we’re starting to see the semblance of a coach who cannot adjust swiftly enough. An overly patient man whose structure now breeds impatience…

It’s time for a change.

I’m going to leave you with that, a very happy Inferno that finally some of the Renney supporters are seeing the light. Next stop….Eric Rothman and Steven Gelbs.

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Sabathia, Burnett, now Texeira……yeah baby! Now go get me Manny!

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I’ve seen this team win plenty of games this season, I’ve seen them lose their fair share of games this season. I’ve seen them blow leads, come from behind, and just about everything else in between. What I haven’t seen this season is a truly dominating performance, particularly against a team of any consequence. Tonight the Rangers were flat out dominating, and against the best team in the universe to boot. The Rangers looked quicker, stronger, faster, more engaged, just out and out better. And really if it were not for 2 early (and might I add questionable) penalties, and a very soft game winning goal, they would have come out of this with at least a point, if not more.

What makes me all the more happy to see though, is that Tom Renney, at least for 1 game, has gotten past my 2 biggest problems with him. First, hes kept the lines, which actually make sense, in tact for several games in a row now. I am very eager to see the Sjostrom Dubi Korpedo trio for a larger sample size, I think it has some really great possibilities. The lines all looked like they belonged, and all had some superb scoring chances and played well in their own zone. Renney also had the team playing a far more attack oriented game. Prior to this game, according to Joe Micheletti during tonights transmission, Tom Renney decided the key to beating the Sharks was to play an offensive attack style game. And whaddyaknow, it worked! Sure, we lost, but you know what, anyone who watched this game would clearly see the better team (tonight) did not get the W. My point though is that this kind of an attack style, where the defense pinches to keep the puck, where the forwards GO as soon as their is a turnover, where the defense skates hard and joins the rush…that kind of an attack is what this offense was built to do, and man oh man did they ever play that style well.

Folks, THIS is the Rangers team I envisioned prior to this season. One that plays well in its own zone (3 goals, none of which were a result of poor defense, but rather being down a man, or a bad goal given up by your goalie), and keeps the chances against to a minimum by dominating in the offensive zone. This is the Rangers team I thought we were buying this offseason. One in which the defense quickly gets the puck to the forwards, and where the forwards use speed, and a tenacious forecheck to get chances off the rush, and cause turnovers.

If this team can maintain this level of play for the remainder of the season and into the playoffs, there is no reason they can’t be in the Stanley Cup finals. Of course that is the problem though isn’t it? The Rangers playing like this, night in, night out, with an up tempo attack game. So this begs the question, does Tom Renney recognize that this style of play works against every team in the league, and not just the San Jose Sharks, or does he revert back to the trap happy game which leads to no offense, and lots of opposition control of the puck.

Time will tell, the next game against the Caps will be a great test to see how much they have learned, because that is a team you can counter all night long and murder them with rushes after their turnovers, but you need to be aggressive, and you need to make quick passes.

Let’s see what happens, but at least 2 of the last 3 games were played against elite teams, and the Rangers looked like the better team in both of them.

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Only in the NHL does saying the words “sloppy seconds” get you a 6 game suspension, but punching a guy in the balls, and cheap shotting him to the back of the head gets you nothing.

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This was such a bizarre game tonight, except that, in many ways, it is basically a similar trend to what we have seen all season long. It is similar in that, we once again played like dog crap against a team we should have routed. It took an insane level of goaltending to squeak out a win. And finally our offense was again unable to do anything positive whatsoever. However with all that said, this was still a very strange game.

Why?

Because of how many polar opposites we saw within the game, and also when compared to the previous night. For example against the Ducks we were superb in our own zone, against the Kings, we couldn’t figure out which zone was our own zone. Against the Ducks we limited the quality chances against to maybe 3, against the Kings they had 3 quality chances every 3 minutes. Then there is also the oppositeness within the game. For example, out offense was incapable of doing ANYTHING, the Kings offense was able to do anything it wanted at will. Our defense was unable to do anything positive outside of a one man herculean effort by Marc Staal, the Kings defense was superb in clearing away the slot, and not allowing the Rangers to get to the high quality areas of the ice. Finally the Rangers got fantastic goaltending from Vally, he was basically a brick wall in net, whereas the goaltending of Jason Labarbera might have been the worst display of goaltending I have ever witnessed in my life (and yet we only put up 3 goals against this joke of a goalie).

Like I said, a very bizarre game.

The negatives were so many that you could literally fill an entire newspaper with them, from the coach completely not adapting to a goalie giving up rebound after rebound, to Dimitri Kalinin playing like a guy who would get run out of the Rec league I play in for being so god awful. Since there are so many, why don’t we just skip it and instead focus on the 3 keys to why we won.

3)Marc Staal. My goodness what a performance we saw tonight from the kid. Outside of one misplay where he went for a huge hit (and missed) which led to 2 super high quality scoring chances by the Kings, he was an absolute beast. Going toe to toe with Brown and Kopitar and looking like the dominant defenseman we expected him to be. He was poised with the puck, away from the puck, and he was willing and able to throw some pretty strong and heavy hits. There is a mancrush thread on him over on the HFBoards that I started, feel free to chime in.

2)Stephen Valliquette. Big Vally was superb in net, staying square to the shooters at all times, and never losing position despite frequently losing his stick. He was very strong in net, saving our asses numerous times with very big, point blank saves. Vally was on, and he was a huge reason we won.

1)Jason Labarbera. I swear, either this guy is secretly on the Rangers payroll, or he had money on the Rangers, because there is no other way for me to describe just how bad this guy was. Watching the highlights above does nothing to show you how awful he was. He couldn’t make a single clean save the entire night. Every save (if it didn’t hit the post or went wide) was followed by a large juicy rebound right in the slot areas, unfortunately we just never had guys there to bury home those countless chances.

Next up, the Sharks, Rangers have picked up 4 points on this very difficult trip, I expect them to be utterly embarrassed by the Kings, but even picking up a point would be miraculous and wholly welcome. Cross your fingers, sacrifice a goat, do whatever you have to, because the Rangers are going to need it.

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There were 6…maybe 7 games prior to tonight where I can honestly say that the Rangers deserved the 2 points they just won. Not that Henrik deserved, or that Zherdev deserved it or that Dubinsky deserved it, but that the Rangers as a team deserved the win. Tonight was another such occasion. In fact I might call tonight just about a picture perfect win. They played a superb defensive game, had quite a few chances against one of the better defensive teams in the league, and somehow managed to pull out a huge win during regulation. Probably the only negative to speak of is a continually inept power play, except technically speaking it did score a goal when Zherdev was hooked down and awarded a goal there at the end, so even that I really can’t harp on.

Instead let’s switch gears and speak of the positives. In this one you finally had the 3rd (or 2nd?) line of Nigel Dawes, Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan look like a threat out there to score for the first time since they were united. I have felt like this was the one line dragging this team down, but tonight they actually had a very good game, even not counting the 2 goals they scored. They forechecked hard, they caused turnovers, and they had numerous scoring chances. In fact if you really think about it, they probably were the best line out there tonight.

The defense was quite good, particularly the pairing of Rozsival and Staal who in my opinion were both absolutely fantastic, particularly Staal who was cool, calm, and collected (as usual) back on defense, but looked to make plays a little more rather than let the play come to him and adjust on the fly. He looked to try to hit people a few times out there, he looked to bring the puck up the ice, he looked to try to make a head man pass. He looked like more and more the stud #1 defenseman we expect him to become. It’s hard to believe just how young this kid really is. His partner, Rozsival, seemed to feed off of Staals aggressiveness and play a superb game himself, constantly getting into passing lanes, playing superb positional hockey, and looked very strong making passes out of his own zone.

Finally there is Henrik Lundqvist, who was quite good, except for the 1 goal he gave up which came directly off of a flubbed shot he should have had. The problem with this though is it’s not entirely unexpected. Henrik plays with an ULTRA stiff glove. If you watch him with it, you can see his literally can’t close the glove at all, when he makes the save, he sort of uses his wrist to bring the glove back, and freeze the momentum of the puck (if that makes sense). This is why Henrik has such a tough time with shots to his glove side, he elects to use it as a blocker more than a glove. It is also why he has such a hard time handling the puck behind the net, the inability to squeeze the glove causes him to not be able to control the stick when playing the puck. Getting back to the game though, Henrik was what every goalie seems to be against us. Good, but not needed to be remarkable. All he had to do was make the saves he should make, and stop maybe 1 or 2 hard ones, other than that, there was nothing really challenging there. Henrik got an easy win tonight, and that’s probably the only time this entire year we have been able to say that. Kudos to the team, they played a superb game, now they better bring it back again tomorrow night against a very underrated Kings team.

P.S. Santa, all I want for Christmas is Mats Sundin….and Marian Gaborik….and Ilya Kovalchuk….

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As usual, if you dont believe it, thats fine, but i figured i would share…

Here is what he has told me so far.

Mats is a Ranger (99.9%)

Once he signs there are 3 deals being discussed, he doesnt know the exactness of it, but here is what he has heard.

The first is between the Rangers and Nucks (Gomez)

The second is between Rangers and Yotes (Rozsival)

The third is between Rangers and Thrashers (Gomez+Rozsival for Ilya)

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According to the message boards, the fan590 is reporting that the Rangers have won the Mats Sundin sweepstakes.

Ladies and gents, this changes EVERYTHING.

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