I’ve always worn the #27, it comes from my love of Alexei Kovalev during his original tenure here as a Ranger before things just went downhill with him here in New York. I love the number, if I had custom license plates, the #27 would surely be in there somewhere. My online screen names usually have the number 27 in them. With all that said, I’ve never been more disgusted to see this number than I am right now. Why am I so disgusted? Because that is where the Rangers rank if the season ended today. 27th in the NHL. Only 3 teams are worse than us, and really the red hot Maple Leafs will likely pass us in the next day or so, and the Philly Flyers who are ice cold at the moment definitely have the talent to go on a long winning streak if they can just put it all together, and finally the Hurricanes, who have been decimated by injuries are going to get healthy sooner or later. So what’s our excuse? I mean, it’s not unfathomable that this team could end up being ranked 29th out of 30 teams within 2 or 3 days. How the hell is that possible? How is it possible for a team to play hard, and lose. For a team to play well, and lose. For a team to score goals, and lose. For a team to only give up a few goals, and lose. When things start going right one way, they go wrong another. They score, Henrik sucks. Henrik plays like a God, they can’t score for their lives. The PP is great, but then it gives up a shorty. They contain guys like Malkin and Crosby, but Rupp scores a hat trick, their D plays great, but their forwards suck. Their forwards play great, but their D sucks. One defenseman is great one night and his partner is awful the same game, and then the next night the partner plays great but the original player is playing like crap. Rangers hit a post and it goes out, opposition hits a post and it goes in. Just nothing is going our way this season, and it’s really tough to put a finger on how this team keeps playing so frustratingly inconsistent. Youth can only be blamed so much, but frankly its the vets that have been the achilles heel of this team.

One has to wonder if the Rangers are prepared to become sellers soon and just go for it and try to nab surefire mega superstar Taylor Hall in next years draft. In order to do that, the Rangers would have to move some pieces, and I’m not sure what team would want to take Wade Redden, Chris Drury or Michal Rozsival right now.

This may be a long season, and an increasingly frustrating one we have going for us. Which is a damn shame, because I truly believe in our coach. If only our General Manager was as good with free agency as he is with prospects and trades. The trades he makes, by and large, end up as good moves for us, and he is almost always unwilling to part with a kid if he has any kind of future here with us. With that said, the guy is an absolute disaster with free agency, and his moves, sans Gaborik and Prospal, are absolutely destroying this franchise. Chris Drury was definitely the worst player on the ice tonight, passes in the feet, shots into the chest, poor defense, poor everything. I’d give away Chris Drury for a Klondike bar right now. Want Rozsival? Give me your worst AHL player and I’ll take him. Want Redden? Got a bag of pucks? Let’s make a deal.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

Over the years I’ve heard quite a few coaches say that their team got caught up in watching the other team. Well, tonight was definitely a game where I was caught watching the other team, and how they were going to solve Henrik Lundqvist.

I know a lot of people on the message boards are going to talk about how horrendous the Rangers were, but honestly, all I could focus on was how spectacular the Blackhawks were, and how unbelievable it was that Henrik Lundqvist was able to steal the Rangers a point. I’m honestly not sure if the Rangers played like utter crap or not, because truth be told, the ‘Hawks played such a remarkable game which was the textbook definition of how to overpower an opponent, that I couldn’t really distinguish between bad play and overmatched play. Maybe the truth is, whether the Rangers played their worse game ever, or their best game ever, they had no chance whatsoever in beating the Blackhawks with the way they played. Sure, Henrik Lundqvist miraculously kept this game close, and actually got us a point that I still can’t understand how we got. But the truth of the matter is, the Blackhawks are just a far, far superior team. This game was reminiscent of the first 3 playoff games against the Caps last year, where Lundqvist somehow won us games we had no business winning, which is both a good thing and a bad thing. Good, because at least Henrik, for tonight, was an elite goalie once again. Bad, because the rest of the Rangers looked like minor leaguers compared to the super talented Blackhawks.

All in all though, if you told me the Rangers would be in Buffalo, at home against the defending Western Conference Champion Red Wings, and back on the road against arguably the best team in the NHL Blackhawks who are practically unstoppable at home, and managed to pick up 3 points, and were a lucky bounce or 2 away from sweeping all 3 games, I’d be fairly happy. Maybe the game by game results were tough to swallow, but the fact of the matter is, going .500 against those 3 teams is actually an accomplishment, especially for a team struggling to find points as much as we are.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

In an interesting twist of fate, just one day after the Rangers were pretty soundly outplayed by the home team Sabres but escaped with a regulation win, the visiting Red Wings similarly were outplayed by and large by the home team Rangers, but were still able to escape with 2 points.

When breaking down the loss to the Wings you really have to look 2 very separate reasons why we lost. First and foremost, Ryan Callahan, Ales Kotalik, Christopher Higgins, and Sean Avery (twice!) had chances to put this game away. Callahan had a penalty shot, and was thwarted by the Wings goalie, who was superb in net. Higgins had a breakaway, and was similarly stopped by a nice save from Howard. And finally you have Avery twice and Kotalik, each with wide open gaping nets to shoot at, and each missed some way, some how. This was just an incredible game to watch simply from a stand point of, how are the Rangers going to screw up this scoring chance sort of way. I mean, the Rangers should have scored at least 4 goals tonight, NHL players should not miss chances like that unless they have the name Stefan on the back of their jersey, and yet three times tonight the Rangers failed to put the puck home on wide open nets. That is inexcusable.

What is more inexcusable was Henrik Lundqvist giving up that second goal. I don’t care how great Lundqvist was till that point, and yes, he was absolutely spectacular. You can not give up a Charmin soft goal with under 3 minutes remaining. I don’t give a damn how many goals the team has scored for you, in a tight game, you can’t give up that goal. It was a horrendous, back breaking goal to give up, and as soon as it was put in, you could feel the collective groans from all over New York (and Atlanta!) wash over you. The 4 guys above cost the Rangers 1 point, but Henrik Lundqvist cost the Rangers that all important other point, and that is something becoming all too common for Lundqvist. Yesterday he gave up a softie, but it didn’t cost the team a win, tonight, it cost us a point, and with the standings as close as they are, Henrik can not give away points like that.

Most seasons you can just throw that away, Henrik usually steals you 20 times more games than he costs you, but this season it’s definitely been the other way around, where Henriks lackadaisical play in net has cost the Rangers points, and the games where he steals us a game where we didn’t deserve to win are few and far between. I don’t know what’s wrong with Henrik, but right now he is not a top flight goalie, and that scares the crap out of me.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

First and foremost, be careful watching those highlights, it’s got Rick Jeanneret announcing it, and if you enjoy having your hearing, and your sanity, it might be worth it to skip them.

Following the last game I made some observations on what was going wrong with the Rangers, observations that Larry Brooks was either thinking about, in almost the exact same order, or that he thought was worth sharing with his readers without giving me credit, regardless I stand by those comments, and it was nice to see myself at least partially vindicated with a Rangers win. Who were the 2 Rangers scorers? Ryan Callahan and Christopher Higgins, 2 guys I singled out (along with Chris Drury who played himself a pretty damn good game outside of one blunder of a pass). Who was the # 1 star? Henrik Lundqvist, and Henrik definitely deserved it, as he turned aside some 36 shots, many of which were high quality chances from point blank range, while leading the Rangers to victory. It’s amazing how different this team looks when Henrik is at the top of his game, and those 3 players (Higgins, Callahan, and Drury) aren’t just this huge black hole in the middle of our roster.

Now granted, it wasn’t a perfect game, it wasn’t even a perfect in any aspect of the game, as the defense, which got plenty of puck support from the forwards, still gave up a tremendous amount of high quality scoring chances, the offense got very few high quality scoring chances themselves (but at least 5 or 6), the offense again hit 2 more posts (Anisimov and Boyle), and Henrik Lundqvist, despite being absolutely spectacular for 59:59 had 1 brain fart on a weird angle goal that he definitely should have stopped. But, when you have your goalie playing more or less at the top of his game, and you have your support players finally putting the puck in the net, it’s much easier to win a game, and remember, we did so on the road against one of the best teams in the East. That is nothing to gloss over. This was a nice regroup effort. A good way to stem the tide before you start pushing back some yourself. The Rangers still have a lot to work on, but tonight was a solid win that they desperately needed. Tomorrow they will probably have to be even better at home against a team thats been to the Stanley Cup Finals seemingly every year in the Red Wings.

Rangers Review | Comments Off

There are 4 big reasons the Rangers are struggling as badly as they are right now, and I think all 4 are equally important.

So, let’s talk about Henrik first. If you’ve read this blog at all, you know how much of a supporter of his I am. I love the guy, he’s the reason we are always in the playoff hunt, but as I mentioned before, the highest paid goalie can not have those kinds of numbers. And before you say it’s because of the team in front of him, remember that it’s been this way for Henrik his entire tenure here, he has never had an easy time of it between the pipes, he has constantly been under siege, and his shots per game this year are almost identical to last years, and the years before (in fact its slightly lower this year than last year). Henrik has not been sharp, and 2 of the 4 goals scored today should have been stopped by a goalie of Lundqvists caliber. Oh, he’s stopping all the shots most goalies do, he’s giving you an average NHL goalie performance, but he’s not an average NHL goalie, he isn’t even a very good NHL goalie, Henrik Lundqvist, when he is on top of his game, is nothing less than one of the best goalies on this planet. He must play a hell of a lot better for this team, especially when they are struggling they way they are.

The third thing there is the underperformance of many members of the team, in particular though we need to look at Chris Drury, Chris Higgins, and Ryan Callahan. Why those 3? Here’s why. Coming into this season Ryan Callahan has averaged 19 goals per 82 games played, Chris Higgins has averaged 24 goals per 82 games played, and Chris Drury has averaged 25 goals per 82 game season. So, coming into this season, for secondary scoring, you figure those 3 guys are good for about 68 goals right? You figure one guy will score a bit more, one guy a bit less, but total they should come in at roughly 68 goals for the year. The unfortunate thing here is that, if they continue this pace, they will come in at a combined 25 goals. COMBINED!!!! We are talking about 43 goals that those guys were supposed to account for that are coming off the top of our expected offensive output. So, to put that in perspective, right now the Rangers are ranked 14th in the NHL at 2.89 goals per game (total 78 goals). If Drury, Higgins and Callahan were performing at their expected level, that number would be at 3.41 goals per game (total 92 goals). I calculated that by adding in what their expected goals were over 27 games and subtracted their current goals. 3.41 goals per game gives you the #2 ranked offense in the NHL, a fraction behind #1 ranked Atlanta. You see how important those 3 players are? When people talk about secondary scoring, really you need to look no further than those 3 players. If the other guys on this team keep performing at the rate they have been, but those 3 finally start producing the way they have their entire career, this team would be significantly better than they are now.

I think a lot of our problems stem from the old squeezing the sticks too tight. Right now this team is so nervous about every mistake that they overthink too much. Henrik is scared about giving up a softie that every save becomes a battle for him. Higgins is scared that he’s going to shoot it right into the goalies pads that he goes for the corners, and hits the post instead. What this team needs right now is a break. A mental break from hockey. They need to go out, go have some fun, get loose, get back in the frame of mind where you play by instinct instead of thinking too damn hard. The Rangers have some time off now, and it’s up to their coach to right this ship. Instead of just giving them the day off tomorrow, like he’s planning, they should instead take the entire team out to some sort of bar or something, go have some fun, shoot some pool, whatever, just get away from hockey. I think that mental relaxation can do wonders for a team that is just so snake bitten right now in every facet of the game that it’s not even funny.

Rangers Review | Comments Off