Greetings, Blueshirt fans. I'm filling in for Steve and Anthony Rieber tonight, so I'll be your guide as the Rangers try to figure out how to snap out of this seven-game funk.
Since the last time we spoke, a lot has changed. I last covered a game on Dec. 10, when the Rangers beat Florida to extend their winning streak to three games. Eventually, that streak reached five.
The prevailing thought at the time was that the Blueshirts had escaped, at last, their early-season pattern of inconsistent play. Henrik Lundqvist and Kevin Weekes were enjoying their best goaltending of the season, the defense had clamped down, and the number of penalties called against them had suddenly (and mysteriously) gone down.
Three weeks later, just about nothing is going right.
The flu bug took all the wind out of their sails (along with back-to-back horrible performances in Toronto and against the Islanders). The Rangers resumed their thoroughly irritating pattern of marching to the penalty box. Lundqvist had a couple of bad games. Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan feel into deep, deep slumps. And no one seems to have any answers as to what has happened, other than pointing to a difficult schedule and the inability to hold a couple of leads.
We're not here to launch into panic mode, but I don't think it's unreasonable for fans (and players and coaches) to wonder how serious the problems are. As Jagr put it after last night's 1-0 loss in Ottawa: "It's not funny any more."
I think it is fair for the both the fans and media to begin asking questions about the point at which the Rangers need to begin to think about making some major personnel changes.
Tom Renney, for his part, seems to be maintaing a mostly positive demeanor. He seems bent on convincing the team to come around through an "us against them" menatlity, rather than by beating them down, a la Mike Keenan.
A sampling of some of Tom's pre-game comments about the losing streak:
"I think it's a psyche, as much as it is anything. I'm not sure we've played particularly bad, certainly in the last three maybe four [games] for good chunks of games. But it doesn't take much to lose one. We just have to overcome that and stay with it and get back to what we want to be . . . although last night looked like more of what we want to be."
"We have to earn our way out of this slide -- it's as simple as that. We can't be satisfied with even just having played three or four decent games that we could have maybe won -- we can't be satisfied with that. It's all about working for 60 minutes and winning."
And discussing Lundqvist's play in the first period afte giving up a goal just 32 seconds into the game:
"Henrik nailed that and he really gave us a chance to say, 'The hell with that.'"
That last quote is significant because, to me, it illustrates Renney's attitude towards his team's struggles. He's certainly been willing to bench players (Nylander), yell and scream and call the team out for bad plays, but what he hasn't done is begin to single out or call the team out in the media.
Everything that Renney does, including the Nylander benching, seems geared not towards demeaning or embarrassing players for poor play, but towards inspiring them. It's a noble disposition, but if the Rangers can't find a way to beat a Washington team that is playing its fourth game in five nights (an extreme NHL rarity), fans are going to start to ask some very, very serious questions. And they have a right to.
Finally, some quick pre-game notes:
Lundqvist is back in goal tonight. Renney said Ryan Hollweg is probable, although Jarkko Immonen will skate in the pre-game just in case Hollweg's charley horse, suffered in a knee-on-knee collision with Ottawa's Christoph Schubert acts up. By the way, Renney briefly indicated that he thought Schubert's hit on Hollweg was intentional. You wonder if the Rangers will be sending that tape to the league for review... Petr Prucha is out of the lineup after taking a vicious check to the head from a charging Chris Neil last night. Colton Orr will most likely take his place, not Immonen.
Comments (5)
Mike, I'm not sure where you got that Prucha wasn't in. He was obviously in with a vengence.
I was at the game and I have to say it was one of the best overall TEAM efforts I have seen all season. Almost everyone played their parts and contributed something, including most of the usual whipping boys of this and other blogs.
Of course most folks recognize and talk about the talent of the stars like Jagr and Shanahan. We all know why Shanny earned that second star of the game without having any points at all. Jagr saw an opportunity and made the perfect pass to Kaspar. Prucha, with his two goals, looked more like the rookie sensation than he has in a long time. (Maybe he should get hit in the head more often. - just kidding, Petr. ;-))
Orr played his part (although possibly a tad overboard), but it was something. He actually got the upper hand in his scrap with Morrisonn. Hossa actually hit and hustled, at one point, singlehandedly keeping the puck the the Caps’ end while an entire line was changing. Almost everyone did their share of hitting, including the normally placid Aaron Ward (I would still like to know what he really said to Brashear), Rachunek, and Rozsival, who was being hounded by the Caps almost as much as Jagr. Everyone showed some fire.
As a team, they gave out 32 hits (widely distributed) and had only 7 giveaways. And best of all is they put in the effort and executed it for the entire 60 minutes. Hopefully, they can bring that level of execution to NJ on Tuesday. That will be the acid test.
colton orr is a disgrace to hockey and has no place in the game. nice job tom renney.
Den,
My apologies for the misinformation on Prucha. I misunderstood a pre-game comment by Tom Renney to mean that Prucha wasn't playing.
It didn't seem far-fetched, since he took an absolutely crunching shot to the head from Chris Neil against Ottawa on Friday night.
The good thing was that Prucha played and played extremely well. As I often like to do, after returning home from the Garden last night, I watched Rangers in 60 to find out what I missed. (You'd be surprised what you can miss when you look down for a second to make a note!)
I took special notice of Prucha's scoring chances and came to the realization that yesterday's game may have been his best in two months.
Yes, he's been hustling all over the ice, but oh my has he been clumsy with the puck. So many scoring chances just sliding off his stick!
Hopefully the little guy has turned things around. He's clearly well-liked by his teammates, but more significantly, the Rangers NEED him to score if they're going to be successful. There's just no way they can rely on four players to do all their scoring throughout the year. (I'm talking about Colton Orr, Ryan Hollweg, Blair Betts and Darius '2 goals' Kasparaitis of course.)
Kidding....
Anyway, it was an enjoyable game to watch and cover. I'm looking forward to getting another chance to cover a game soon.
-Mike
Mike,
Thanks for the update. Yes, I'm sure it's easy to miss things, since it is the fastest game around. I like watching Rangers in 60 also. For example, who could see from section 410 that Rachunek's play leading to his penalty shot hit the post not once, but twice. Just curious... are the reporters covering a game able to see the TV (and replay) feed from where you guys sit?
Anyway, thanks again. Happy New Year.
Another great blog entry, thank god. Who's gonna sit when Jed comes back tonight, or does Orr's suspension make my question moot?