It doesn’t get much worse than that. Following your worse game of the season with an 8-3 loss isn’t going to get your fans excited to come out to the building that’s for damn sure. I think the telling thing here was that the Rangers didn’t play all that bad of a game, but, going back to the equalizer metaphor from before, when one thing is right, something else seems to be going wrong. Tonight it was goaltending and some really bad reads by the defense. I think for the bulk of this year our D has been a surprise in how good they have played by and large, But today, from our blueline on in we were just awful. Valliquette was great the first 10 minutes, but Vally is what he is, a very streaky goalie, and when the flood doors open with him, they don’t close for a long period of time. I would not be opposed to moving him at the deadline for a pick if there are takers.

Another interesting thing was Torts saying that he would not have played Lisin, Kotalik or Boyle (who did sit) if they had the players here to take their spot. With Lisin this has been a long time coming, he has been pretty god awful for a while now, and despite all the hype jobs the MSG crew tries to give us, shows me absolutely nothing. Kotalik might be worse in that he is making a ton of money and brings nothing besides a strong heavy shot.

To me I would have zero problems trading Kotalik, Lisin, Brashear, Voros, and even Prospal. Prospal because he is a short term solution, not a long term, and his value is super high, and clearly this team isn’t going anywhere right now. Perhaps you can trade Prospal, Kotalik and Lisin and get a nice return, I’m sure some team wouldn’t mind having that bomb from the point, or the upside of Lisin, or Prospals superb play.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not advocating giving up on this season, I’m just saying, something needs to be done. This team is not playing well, Torts knows it and has some players in his doghouse, and I don’t see them coming out of it anytime soon.

If the Rangers don’t turn this around, this losing streak can easily turn into an out of control spiral that gets people fired. And honestly, I think firing Torts is 100% the wrong move here. The guy is perfect for this team, this city, he wears his heart on his sleeve, wants to win more than anything, and demands people play their best. That’s what I want in my coach.

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This is one of those games you want to forget. In fact I’m not even going to include the highlights of the game. Really no Ranger played a good game, not even Gaborik who was very sloppy with the puck, nor Henrik Lundqvist who was rightfully pulled (though none of the goals were of the soft variety, but they could have been stopped). This was one of those games you just need to forget. So let’s do that. Tomorrow we’re in Pittsburgh, a good chance to undo the mess we made tonight.

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On the eve of Thanksgiving the Rangers played one of their better games all season. It was really rewarding to see the team bounce back after some truly awful performances over the past month. Don’t worry, no more equalizer metaphors here, just some general comments before I hit the sack. The Rangers were a lot more tenacious on the puck, not giving the Panthers much room to operate, the neutral zone especially was hotly contested, but I liked the fact that the Rangers puck pursuit was much improved without sacrificing odd man rushes against. The flip side of that was that Henrik Lundqvist gave up a soft goal allowing this game to go to OT so even when the Rangers play a great game, it seems like there is something that is juuuuust there to hold them back. Henrik of course redeemed himself by stopping all 3 shootout chances, and PA Parenteau won it with a nice misdirection move. Speaking of Parenteau, in my personal opinion, the kid is worth a helluva lot more to this team than Voros or Lisin. When Kotalik and Dubinsky come back, those 2 are the ones I would part ways with.

That’s all for now, have a great turkey day everyone!

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No, I’m not talking about an equalizing goal or anything, by titling this post as Equalizer what I am referring to is this:

I’m sure you all know what it is. The kind of equalizer that shows the output of the different ranges of music. The highs, lows, mids, etc. Well, that’s sorta what I wanted to talk about tonight after the Rangers laugher win against the Jackets (you can’t help but want to call them the BJ’s can you?). Generally speaking, no team is ever going to be perfect…certainly not for an extended period of time anyway. Your offense might be going, but your defense might not. Your offense and defense might be great, but you goaltending is shoddy. All of those might be working, but your specialty teams is terrible. What you want to see most of the time is that the equalizer lines are more up than down. You know that nothing will be perfect, but if you can get it mostly going in the right direction, then you are doing a good job.

Now what we have to realize is that, some teams are simply incapable of getting all those bars to go up. You simply don’t have the goaltending. Your defense is just slow and inept. Your coach has a terrible system in place, your forwards are simply not talented enough. And that’s what we’ve been hearing from a lot of Ranger fans recently. I’ve called shenanigans on it because I really think this team has what it takes to be one of the better teams in this league. Certainly a playoff team. I say this because I saw the Rangers play superb hockey at the start of the season. Most of the bars, were up, and when one of them went down, another one went up to compensate (when your defense plays like crap, your goalie comes up big). That’s how you want your team to run. The problem of late was that most of the bars were down, all at once. It’s like someone unplugged the equalizer all at once. There is a reason I didnt panic though, because, like an equalizer, there are ups and downs, sometimes the music goes off for a bit, sometimes it reaches a crescendo. You have to be patient and wait it out, because by the end you should hear a good song like something written by The Doors(whereas the crap we’ve seen the past few years is more like Britney Spears or something).

The Rangers definitely played a better game today, more bars were up than down, but they weren’t perfect. The defense was sloppy in their own zone, even though they definitely cut down on the number of odd man rushes. But there were open men in the slot many times tonight, and it wasn’t just on the goals they scored, it was a repeat offense. Their goaltending was definitely nothing special. While it’s tough to fault Henrik on any of those goals, it’s also fair to say that Henrik, when he is on top of his game, stops at least 2 of those, if not all 4. And finally the Power Play was more or less abysmal. Yeah, they scored a goal, but it was a very soft goal given up, and for most of their power plays they were not getting quality chances on net.

One last thing. Just a quick note about Artem Anisimov. Wanted to point out he is in the top 10 in scoring by rookies, despite playing about 11 minutes a night on average, playing a grand total of 9 minutes on the power play (compared to about 100 minutes for rookie leader John Tavares) and is on pace to score 17 goals and 21 assists despite playing with guys like Donald Brashear, Aaron Voros, and other 3rd and 4th lines. This kid is the real deal, right now I would put him on a line with Prospal and Gaborik for a few games and see how he does, because I think hes got the talent to hang with those 2.

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This was a bad one. A very very bad one. This wasn’t the Rangers losing to the Capitals getting a boost with AO back in the lineup. This wasn’t the Rangers losing to the Thrashers getting a boost with Kovalchuk back in the lineup. This was the Rangers losing to a team that has been absolutely annihilated by injuries, and the worst part is, the Rangers didn’t even deserve to be that close by the time the game was done.

I mean, sure, the 2nd goal that Henrik gave up was horrible, but he was the only reason it was even remotely close at that point. The Rangers were giving up odd man rushes, they had no jump whatsoever in their game, and most disturbing of all, is that they looked lazy out there for the first 35 minutes of this game. A team that is losing games like nobodies business can not afford to give half assed efforts out there. They absolutely must give it their all.

Right now I am so disgusted with this effort that I can’t even bear to talk about this team, but I will try.

I think the people who are screaming for Torts’ head are absolutely off base, but he does deserve a bit of the blame here, this team is not playing with energy or effort, and that is on the coach. He needs to get them motivated for these games, get them to come out strong, hard, and with a full tank of gas. I think he also needs to start calling out some people publicly for their play.

Let’s hope now that the Rangers are going back into a steady groove of games, they can get their heads out of their collective asses and start playing right. Because while I have confidence in this team, that confidence isn’t without its limits.

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Just a heads up, there will be no wrap tonight, Versus game, i’m blacked out thanks to DirecTV. I tried watching some of the online streams, but they keep going in and out, and one of them changed to a basketball game early in the 3rd.

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The Rangers finally got back in the win column with a pretty nice effort this afternoon against an Ottawa team that was floundering just as much as we were, and had to make a statement. Frankly I thought both teams played a pretty good game which is why this one was a squeaker that went to a shootout. The only Rangers goal was set up by our 1 man gang Marian Gaborik who set up Vinny Prospal for a goal even I could score. Interestingly enough I don’t think Henrik Lundqvist was all that great tonight, he looked a little off, the goal he gave up was one he should have stopped, and all game long it looked like he was having trouble controlling the puck. On one strange play the puck was softly shot at him and he just misplayed it right off his glove. Pucks that he usually stopped cleanly were being left out as rebounds, and a few times he peeked behind himself thinking the puck went in.

The thing that you really have to like though is the way the Rangers went back to basics. They decided to get back to protecting their own end, and then leading that to scoring chances against. This is NOT a call for going back to the Renney style of hockey, quite the contrary, I still feel like the pressure game is the way to win in the NHL, however this team looked so out of sorts against the Thrashers I think it was a very shrewd move by Torts to get the team focused on their own end, then once they get comfortable again with their own zone play, allow them to get back to what made them successful early in the season.

On a really positive note, it looks like Sean Avery and Chris Higgins have both started to wake up. After a miserable start to the season for Higgins, he has finally started to play like the player we remember from Montreal. Getting to the net, showing some nice hands, and playing a very smart 2-way game. Sean Avery who has been out and out miserable for a few weeks now, finally got back to basics himself, instead of trying to be fancy with the puck, he got back to being physical, to being a pain in the ass, and as such got rewarded for his play with some pretty heavy minutes (when we weren’t killing penalties). Speaking of penalties, I think this team really needs a wakeup call. They are taking way too many penalties, and have been for the entire season. Tonight it took a monumental effort by the penalty killers in blocking shot after shot after shot to keep the Senators power play at bay. If the Rangers are to turn this around, a key aspect will be keeping the power plays against to about 3 a game for a stretch here.

Down on the farm it looks like Bobby Sanguinetti has figured out the AHL, as the Rangers defenseman is 8th in the league in scoring, 2nd amongst defenseman (#1 is a 29 year old career minor leaguer). It is only a matter of time before this kid pushes himself into the NHL. One has to wonder if it will be at the expense of a guy like Michal Rozsival or Wade Redden, both of whom have been playing pretty good (I don’t by Larry Brooks’ impression of Rozsival, I think he has been just fine for the most part) but neither of whom are playing like 5-6.5 million dollar defenseman. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Rangers deal one of them at the deadline for a pick or a prospect to a team who need some veteran help, and bring up Pasta for the stretch run. Then again I think the right move might be to let Sanguinetti dominate down there like they did with Anisimov, and bring him up next season out of camp with a brand new season in front of him.

All in all, a great win for the Rangers, and things are looking very good down on the farm. Next game is on Versus which I don’t have. I’ll see if I can find an online feed, but if not, then no postgame wrap for me.

Also, on a side note, although I never wanted to do advertising on my site, the donate button hasn’t yielded near enough cash to pay for this site, so as such I am going to have to put a few small ads here and there to help pay the bills. I’ve never looked to make a dime off this place, but I don’t want the expense of the domain, the hosting, etc to cost me anything either, especially the way the economy is and my own company being a retail company to boot. So look for some small ads in the next few days on the side, or at the bottom, and feel free to click through on them if they interest you.

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First off, it’s never fun when the Rangers lose to the Thrashers since all my friends give me a heaping pile of crap, but this game was especially difficult to watch because of just how poorly the Rangers played in just about every facet of the game, poor passing, poor shooting, horrendous decision making, and the defense looked like one of the oldest in the league rather than one of the youngest in the league by constantly being skated by as if they weren’t even there.

While I am extremely annoyed at how poorly this team has played for the past 2+ weeks, I think the key here is that their mistakes are correctable. For the most part they are mental mistakes rather than physical mistakes. Poor routes to the puck, stupid decisions (Marc Staal, STOP rushing the puck up the ice!), inexplicable penalties (most were warranted, though that dive on Del Zotto was absolutely horrendous), and a disappearing Sean Avery have led to this slump.

Let’s start with Sean Avery. Avery has not only been a complete non factor out there, but at times he looks downright lazy. I expect Sean to go offsides at inopportune times, I expect Sean to take stupid penalties at inopportune times, but lately I’ve started to expect Sean Avery to coast every shift and not give it his all, and that is something we have not seen from Sean during his entire tenure here. Sometimes he is a detriment, most times he’s a piece of the puzzle, but as of late, he has been a waste of a roster spot, and that needs to stop right away.

The other aspects, the poor routes, stupid decisions, and poor timed penalties…those things can, and I truly feel will be corrected. I also want to mention one last thing. As poor as the Rangers played, as outright dominating as the Thrashers were for the vast majority of this game, it still took an incredible goaltending display by Hedberg as well as some pretty lucky bounces for them to win this. What that says to me is this is a good team who is struggling, rather than a poor team who is coming back down to earth. Ranger fans, this team is more than good enough to bounce back and string together several wins in a row and get out of this funk. I still have a very good feeling about this team, despite their horrendous play of late. Keep the faith.

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Continuing where they left off, the Rangers once again played a solid game (I felt they were solid against the ‘nucks as well) against the Oilers in what seemed like an absolutely dead Edmonton building. The Rangers ran roughsod over the Oilers winning a 4-2 game that really wasn’t that close. The goaltending matchup, to me, was lopsided in favor of the Bulin wall, who played an absolutely magnificent game, but gave up 4 goals, whereas Valiquette gave up 2 goals, but I felt he was the lone Ranger who stood out in a negative way giving up 2 ridiculously soft goals, particularly the first goal of the game to Visnovsky…a backhand, on that angle, should never go in unless it’s Martin St. Louis taking the shot (he’s just that damn good at those kinds of plays). Similarly the goal by Comrie has very little velocity on it, was nice and low, and is a fairly easy play to stop. While Vally did make a few nice saves, particularly against Dustin Penner, it’s still no excuse for those 2 goals…it made a game that should have been a laugher, a little too close for comfort.

The amazing thing here was just how well our defense played. Not only did they block a plethora of shots, but they also did a spectacular job of transitioning the puck to the sticks of the forwards super fast. The Oilers were constantly caught in rush situations because of the speed of the pucks leaving our zone. Really, if not for a goaltending display by Khabibulin, the Rangers probably score 6, maybe 7 goals tonight. The defense got into the scoring with Del Zotto with another jaw dropping pass leading to Ryan Callahans slump breaking goal. Is this kid amazing or what? Del Zotto sees things on the ice that few players in the league see…and he’s only 19…sheesh. Similarly Wade Redden made a beautiful pass to spring…I want to say Higgins, but I don’t really remember who it was, only to have the play stopped by Khabibulin. The defense did a great job, with nobody standing out in a negative way, and everyone playing very well. All 4 lines played very well also, with the exception of Aaron Voros who had 2 offensive zone penalties and was in the doghouse for a large portion of the game. Once Byers’ suspension is over, I expect Voros to be keeping that seat warm in the pressbox.

Ok, that’s all for now, I will be out of town this weekend, but I had the DVR set to record the game…I will try to watch it Sunday night and do a quick post about it after that.

Have a great weekend everyone!

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