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Date: Sunday, March 7, 2010
Time: 5:00pm – 6:00pm
Location: The Steps Outside Madison Square Garden
Street: 1 Penn Plaza
City/Town: New York, NY

After hearing the post game comments given by coach Tortorella, and alternate captain Ryan Callahan, you would think that this 5-1 drubbing the Rangers took today was a hotly contested affair where just a bounce or 2 was the difference in the game. You would think so, but you would be wrong. This was not one of those games, this was nothing short of a complete no-show for the Rangers for about 75% of this game. It wasn’t that they played badly. They just didn’t show up, they didn’t give a flying frak whether or not they won this game. When they finally decided to show some heart, they did so when it was far too little, and far too late. They squeezed their sticks like a team that just knows they can’t score goals, and their goalie was absolutely putrid between the pipes. This is a team that isn’t slumping, this is a team that is freefalling with no end in sight. A 2 game winning streak won’t fix things, the Rangers need to go on a huge run soon, or this season is toast. As it stands right now the Rangers are slated to finish at roughly 83 or 84 points. With that kind of a finish, the Rangers will probably have a top 10 draft pick, possibly in the 5-10 range. The Rangers are standing on a precipice right now. I know that seems kind of extreme considering they are 1 point from being in 6th place, but it’s not really the case. Here’s the problem… The Rangers schedule is pretty damn hard from here on out.

The Rangers have 28 games remaining.
They play 2 games against the “bottom feeders” with 2 against Toronto.
They play teams that are expected to finish with 100 points or higher (Washington, NJ, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, SJ, Chicago, Colorado, Vancouver, Phoenix) 11 times.
The remaining 15 games are:
Los Angeles, Nashville, Tampa Bay, Ottawa, Atlanta, Philadelphia, Montreal, St. Louis, Boston, Islanders, and Florida.

So, here is the math portion of this evening. What I want to do is take the Rangers current record against the remaining teams, and use that to project how many points we should have when finishing the season. For teams where we have no track record, I will assume 1 point won simply because that is what kind of a team we are as it stands now, 1 point per game. Here is the table:

So what does my math tell me? My math tells me that based on our schedule difficulty our team will more than likely finish in the bottom 4 in the East. Meaning instead of making the playoffs, this team will likely finish with the 6th overall pick in the NHL draft, and probably within a point or 2 of actually have a chance at the #1 overall pick (thanks to the lottery). That is both horrifying, and slightly exciting. Why? Because of the Rangers go on full blown rebuild mode, they could beat the odds, and likely finish with a top 5 pick AND gather some assets, whereas if they instead try to “go for it” they may finish with a top 5 pick, and no assets, maybe not even said pick.

The next 5-10 games will be huge for this team. If they can win say 16 out of the next 20 points, then they are right back into it, and all this math was a waste of time, however if they don’t go beyond the point per game pace they are at now, this team will more than likely be at a crossroads. To rebuild, or to go for it.

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I think the Rangers should just stop going to Montreal. Whenever that game comes up on the schedule we should just waive the white flag, throw in the towel, etc, because we can’t do jack shit in this building. It’s gone on for years now. Take a 5 goal lead into the 3rd, lose the game. Go up by a few goal, they storm back to win it in OT. Tonights game was nothing short of a pathetic effort by the defense of this team. Yes, we were again shut out for something like the 40th time in the last 42 games…but to me it was the play of the horrendous defense, headlined by Dan Girardi and Michal Rozsival that really hurt this team. The forwards were so busy trying to collapse into the slot because of how horrible the coverage was that they didnt have the chance to play up the ice. Now don’t get me wrong, the puck pursuit, and hunger to win battles was downright pathetic, but to me it all starts with how you play in front of your own net, and Girardi and Rozsival basically giftwrapped tonights game for the Habs.

Is it time to panic? No. Games like this happen, while it seems to be happening with alarming consistency for these Rangers, they are still right in the thick of the playoff race. Let’s see how they are in a week shall we? But if a player was to become available, like say, Ilya Kovalchuk, I for one would welcome his acquisition, even if it comes at the expense of Dubinsky or Callahan, or another young stud or 2, because players like Kovalchuk come around once a generation for a team like the Rangers.

I think this year though you also have to acknowledge that..

It’s really tough to have a young team, where basically none of the vets are playing even remotely good hockey. I’m not necessarily talking about why we arent scoring goals, but why we arent playing good hockey for the vast majority of our games. It’s been rare this season where you can say the Rangers played well but lost. It’s been far more common for them to play Poor< ->OK and win….that’s thanks to our goalie, and our phenomenal sniper.

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I’m sure tomorrow all everyone will talk about are either Tortorellas confrontation with Brooks after the game, or with the fight Carcillo had with Gaborik and nobody stepped into help. So let’s start there shall we? With regards to Torts and Brooks, I think it’s really just a matter of Torts trying to “protect” his guys by doing what he did to Brooks. If you read Brooks you know pretty much all he does is bash Sather, Redden, Rozsival, and Tortorella…then rinses and repeats. I feel like Torts is just trying to tell Brooks that they know what he is doing, and they’ve had enough of his BS. Torts has this right, and I don’t mind it one bit, though to be fair, the question Brooks was asking, which relates to the second issue, was not only fair, but was one I was really hoping Torts would address in the post game press conference before I even saw it. The issue of course was whether Girardi, or someone else, should have stepped into the fight, and saved Gabby from the beatdown. I of course am firmly on the side of, penalties be damned, Gaborik is way more important than 1 penalty, or 1 game lost if you happen to give up a game winning goal on the ensuing penalty kill. The Rangers, and Girardi in particular, should have leveled Carcillo the second it happened. I know a lot of people are bashing Carcillo, but he’s not doing anything that Avery wouldn’t do himself. Anyone remember Avery bashing Tim Thomas upside the head? That was worse. Carcillo did his job, and took our best player out of the game for a very long 5 minutes.

The game itself wasn’t really played all that badly by the Rangers, who really only had 1 quality shot on net, by Aaron Voros of all people, for the entire game. The trouble is the Flyers played a superb game, gave the Rangers absolutely nothing, and were relentless on the forecheck.

Prior to this season I picked the Flyers to win the Eastern Conference, and I really felt they would come out of the East and possibly win it all if their goaltending was good. Well, their goaltending didn’t need to be good, because their skaters were so damn dominant in all aspects that the Rangers seldom found themselves in prime shooting position, and when they were they either shot it wide, or, more often than not, the Philadelphia skaters were there to deflect the shots away. I tip my hat to the Flyers, they were outstanding.

Next game is against the Habs, and should be a tough win. Habs aren’t all that bad, and their stadium is always a decided home ice advantage, as long as the team is playing semi competent out there.

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I watch a lot of Rangers hockey, as I am sure you do as well. The vast majority of it comes from my living room in front of my nice projection TV. It’s been this way my whole life, even when I lived in NY, NJ, Texas, and now in Atlanta, I always watch a ton of games at home, and only a few live. Yes, even when I lived in NY. Why? Because you can sort of remove yourself from the crowd, from the people around you, and just focus on the game when you are at home. You don’t have distractions, you don’t fall victim to the gang mentality of the Garden (SHOOT THE PUCK!), instead you can just sit back, take it all in, and come to your own opinion on what went right, and what went wrong. Today though was one of a handful of games over the past few years that I have watched at home where I thought to myself, damn, I wish I was there watching it live. To be there as Wade Redden had a fight and was cheered, to be there as the Rangers stormed back from a 2 goal deficit and played their most passionate, intense hockey of the season was quite simply awe inspiring. I wish I could have been there to heckle the Habs fans with the Ole! Ole! Ole! chant. I wish I could have been there to boo Scott Blowmez every time he touched the puck. I wish I could have been there to watch Captain Cardboard Chris Drury erupt into an emotional tirade after having his stick held. I wish I could have been there to watch Torts and Avery have their shouting match, only to have Avery back on the ice as though it never happened. I wish I could have been there to watch Vinny Prospal make a gorgeous passing play to set up Dubi for the easiest goal he will likely have in his career. I wish I could have been there to watch Ryan Callahan do his thing. I wish I could have been there to watch the stick salute, because this was one game where I wanted to give this team a standing ovation.

With that said, let’s see them do it again on Tuesday. And by “let’s see” I mean, you all will see, because that is another Versus game, and I am blacked out, where there will be a lack of a post game wrap.

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All in all I don’t think the Rangers played that bad of a game tonight. They definitely worked hard, tried hard, did a lot of good things, they just couldn’t get the right results. The thing that jumped out at me though was the shot selection the Rangers had. Actually if you think about it, this is a huge problem theyve had the entire year, when do you shoot the puck, and when do you not shoot the puck. Many times the defenseman will take a point shot with no traffic whatsoever only to lead to an easy save and a stoppage. Or if they shoot the puck with traffic in front, its elevated making blocking the puck much easier. The defenseman seem to have a problem getting their shots low, and on net when there is traffic in front. Most of it is simply mental, which means it is something they should be working on ad-nauseum if they aren’t already.

It’s not the defenseman only though, the forwards are doing the same crap as well, shooting when they should be passing, and passing when they should be shooting. Chris Drury had a clean shot at the goal from the slot about 15 feet away, he tried to pass. You never pass in that situation. Sean Avery had a few great passing opportunities where he elected to shoot instead. It’s rampant all over this team. To me this is something they need to work on, because shot selection is used everywhere, PP, PK, etc. For a team that anticipates where to be defensively when on the PK (ie the opposite of shot selection) so well, they are absolutely putrid at doing the opposite for themselves.

If I’m Torts, I’m not too disappointed in the game as far as how the team played, but I have a lot of work to do, thats for damn sure.

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I mean……..How can they……What the hell were……Where was the…..

………

I’ve got nothing.

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It’s a pretty simple recipe. When you’re playing an injury depleted team that isn’t playing their best hockey, you need to take the battle to them. You can’t let them hang around, or let them dictate the play, like the Rangers did in Atlanta. You go at them, go at them hard, and go for the jugular. Now, while the Rangers didn’t exactly kill the Bruins, anyone who watched this game knows the Rangers were the better team from pretty much minute 1. Sure the Bruins had a few surges along the way, but that’s true of every game you will ever play, no team is going to simply sit back and take an ass kicking.

So there is a lot to be happy about after todays win, and while I was not so happy about the game here in Atlanta, the Rangers are still 8-1-3 in their past 12, and that is something to be very pleased about, even if their schedule has been very favorable during that stretch.

I did want to comment on the 800lb gorilla in the room that I have more or less stayed quiet on, and that has been Christensen centering the first line. I was pretty ambivalent to Christensen even being on the roster prior to the move to the first line. He really didn’t do all that much to make me notice him besides playing a good well rounded game. But you most definitely have to be impressed with the way he has played on the top line. Not only has he distributed the puck well, he has also put the puck in the net himself, and, more importantly, he’s not just getting points by giving the puck to Gaborik and getting the eff out of the way a-la Prospal (not that there is anything wrong with that, a goal is a goal). He’s getting everyone involved in the offense, and Brandon Dubinsky has reaped the rewards. Dubinsky has 5 goals and 7 assists in his past past 10 games. This is thanks in large part to being shifted to wing which has allowed his straight ahead game blossom. I recommended the same thing (moving Dubi to wing) early in the season when I proposed a first line of Dubinsky – Anisimov – Gaborik. I still feel that is a worthwhile lineup to try at some point, but for now you can’t break up this trio.

It will be interesting to see what the Rangers do when Prospal comes back, I for one would put him on the 3rd line to try to shake up that trio (Kotalik, Anisimov and Avery). But it’s a good problem to have. No postgame wrap for the Tuesday game against the Devils since I don’t get Versus anymore.

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I just finished listening to Tortorellas post game comments, and it would seem he has given his team a pass on this one. I won’t be so kind. In a display of ineptitude by both sides, the Rangers were able to suck just a little bit more than the home team Thrashers. Atlanta who has zero regulation wins in their past 19 games (believe it or not) were able to beat the Rangers in one of the most horribly played hockey games I have ever watched live. No offensive flow by either team, and neither team were playing the trap….how the hell does that happen?! Pucks were jumping over sticks, guys were skating by pucks, it was just horrible to watch.

I have no explanation as to why Tortorella put Michael Del Zotto into the shootout, it seems like a helluva place to put the kid in. Hes a playmaking defenseman who hasnt score a goal since the Carter administration, and you put him in a do or die situation like that? I don’t get it, especially with captain cardboard sitting pretty on the bench.

The lone bright spot for the Rangers tonight was backup goalie Chad Johnson, who was absolutely outstanding, making a few remarkable jaw dropping saves, and also being lucky with some posts.

Torts wants to give this team a pass because they have gotten points in something like 11 out of their past 12 games, but still, there is no excuse for not running the table on a Thrashers team that looked just as lost as we did for the bulk of the night.

Just a terrible game, and it left me with a terrible taste in my mouth. Yuck.

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This is really what the formula was supposed to be before the season started. Henrik Lundqvist rock solid between the pipes, Gaborik picking up a goal or 2, Sean Avery annoying the ever loving shit out of the opposition, and guys like Chris Drury, Ales Kotalik, and others picking up some secondary scoring, with different guys doing it on different days. Lo and behold, the Rangers are putting that formula to work as they continue their great play as of late, with a 7-1-2 record in their last 10 games, most of which the Rangers have played good to great hockey. These aren’t smoke and mirrors wins, these aren’t the wins where Henrik Lundqvist is single handedly winning us games. These are games where the team is winning, not individuals. And that has to make you at least somewhat hopeful for the rest of this season.

Still though, its only been a short while, we need to see more of this. More of perfect penalty killing. More power play goals. More blasts of the puck that beat goalies cleanly. More Sean Avery. More cow bell. More Chris Drury driving the net. More of all these things that lead to a winning formula.

Remember though, it’s not just about winning. That’s always been my mantra. Wins and losses don’t mean jack to me. It’s always about playing well. If you play well, the wins will follow, even if you lose a few here and there that you deserve to win. Likewise if you play like crap, and still get wins, the market will correct itself, and eventually you will spin into a downward spiral. Luckily the Rangers are winning while playing well. Tomorrow will be an interesting game as the Rangers come to my home town to take on an ice cold Thrashers team that, according to my friends calculations, are 4 goals away from being on an 18 games losing streak. 18 games!!! Holy Moly. Rangers need to not have a let down game here. This one screams of playing Ocho Cinco (Chad Johnson), but I for one hope the Rangers play Lundqvist. Every single time they come here they always play their backup goalie…is it really any surprise the Rangers never seem to win here? I think it would be a mistake to give Henrik a day off here. These points are crucial, and while the Thrashers may be losing a lot of games, they are definitely scoring a lot of goals, Henrik might be crucial.

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In case you missed it, and I feel sorry for you if you did. Team USA defeated Team Canada in an EPIC Gold Medal game tonight. Rangers prospects were up and down the scoring summary, Kreider getting a goal, Bourque getting an assist, and Team USA Captain, Derek Stepan picked up a goal, and an assist, and was on the 2 on 1 rush that John Carlson scored on. This was far more exciting than any Ranger game played in the past few years. Just an epic game from start to finish. You should be able to watch it on TSN’s website tomorrow, and I urge you to do so if you havent.

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