The Rangers limped out of the Garden last night with another loss on their record and fan base increasing in anger. Coming into the season, there was much hype about a revamped offense and how the talent base would be freed from the defensive shackles known as John Tortorella's system. Well, to date, the egg is on all our faces as the vaunted offensive upgrade that was to come has not eve come to close to meeting the hype.
There are lots of theories for the missing in action scoring as well as overall team's woes, and here are some: - Be it the injuries to open the season to Ryan Callahan and Carl Hagelin, then the concussion to Rick Nash, followed by the one to Marc Staal and now the knee injury to Callahan. - Maybe the lack of continuity in the pre-season led to the early season problems but that ship has sailed. - Possibly it is as coach Alain Vigneault said that the team lacks the talent to play his system, but again, he knew the talent when he took the job and is required to meld the system to the talent, at least for the immediate future. - Maybe it is the fault of Glen Sather, who allowed some of the heart of the team in Brandon Prust to leave, regardless of the reason, and has failed to replace that on this squad. In addition, there is a lack of depth like last year. - Add in the problems that Henrik Lundqvist has had this year - mainly his glove hand - which was an area of weakness that he worked on to remediate in the past, yet he still is too deep in the net and crouched too low, allowing a myriad of goals top-shelf. Then when he overcompensates, he gets beat down low. However, I don't buy the argument that the lack of a contract extension was a driver in his problems, because a) he has been worse since he signed it and b) this gets back to idea of mental softness and fragility, which I don't think is the case with Hank. - Toss in the shifting between the systems. The lack of a true identity on this squad is staggering. In the past, you know what you were going to see nightly. The scoring wasn't there, but almost nightly, the effort was. Now, it comes and goes, shift to shift, period to period, game to game and player to player. - In addition, as we have spoken about repeatedly, it's the failure to do the little things. It's the forward and defenseman getting caught too deep, allowing an odd-man rush (such as Matt Calvert's goal, also misplayed by Anton Stralman). It's a rookie trying to live up to his physical hype and delivering a blow, taking himself out of position, causing a 3-on-1 and goal. It's a deflection off a d-man in front. It's the inability to finish or even show consistent effort which I will get to more.
I probably would have been better off highlighting what is going well or who is playing up to or beyond his capacity. Well, there is. Maybe him, no. Possibly that, no. Ok, Ryan McDonagh is, thought he too got caught on the last goal, but it's hard to criticize him with 92 seconds left, down by a goal. Oher than that, who has stepped up? Who has gone above and beyond or just at where we thing they should be?
This is a failure of epic proportions. How can you go just 1-15 after giving up the first goal? Are you that mentally fragile that you can't come back from a 1-0 deficit? Maybe we saw they were just that Saturday night. The Rangers had a 2-0 lead and looked to be on their way to their third win in four games over a hated rival. Then Cam Janssen's goal happened. I think most of us agree it very likely should have been overturned, but as we know, it stood. After that, all the momentum was gone and the team was a shell of what they showed in the first period. Mentally fragile. No confidence. No heart. No effort.
Kevin Weekes put it well: "My challenge with the Rangers right now, based on their makeup, is I don’t know if they have enough skill to be a purely skilled team and I don't think they're gritty enough throughout their lineup to be able to play a power game. They're caught in between. They're capable of doing both of those things well. But what are they committed to." In addition, Weekes said: "A lot of guys are not playing up to their potential right now, and can and should be better. They're not getting enough offensive plays consistently from their defense. They're not making enough east-west plays. And when they were going well, they were doing a lot of those things, especially making more east-west passes using the width of the rink. Right now they're stagnant offensively, they're too predictable." The question is who is the major culprit for this? Is it Sather? The Players? The Coach? More likely it's a combination of all of them, but who will take the fall if it doesn't turn around?
If you think all this is bad, trust me, as a long-time Rangers fan, you ain't see nothing yet. If the ship doesn't get righted soon, you will have apathy by the fanbase. Once that happens, then you really have hit rock bottom. The diehards will care, the rest, with all that can be done in NY, James Dolan will be lucky to get 12-15k a night, which will worsen as the year wears on.
When the year ended, I wrote that I wanted Tortorella to return. At the time I said, "I believe he has flaws and areas that need to be worked on, but I also think he is the right coach for this team at this moment. Part of my reasoning does have to do with the shortened season and players not going through the Hell Camp, which I think will help the team tremendously." Of course, that was before the open mutiny, or supposed mutiny in which the players asked for Torts to be replaced, though I wonder how accurate that was given Sather's comments on the style of play being a major concern. In addition, I was against the possible hiring of Messier. I wrote at the time, "The biggest being is he willing to commit to all the work that's required to be a coach? He showed at the Spengler Cup that he can coach for a short-term tournament, and even that may not be a great gauge, since you can somewhat pick and choose who you want there, most unlike setting your roster in a cap world. Will he have that same motivation for Game 52 in Winnipeg as he would in Game 5 of a short tournament?"
Given what we have seen to date, I still think I was right on Torts and possibly wrong on Messier. Would be saying the same lack of effort? Would there be a better melding on style to talent? Possibly. The Rangers are now 0-3-1 on their nine-game home stand. Following Calgary on Sunday, the road gets harder with Pitt, the Islanders (mainly because they are a divisional rival), Minnesota and Toronto. If the Rangers don't how some semblance or a turnaround or continuity on the ice, I expect a major change. I understand the argument that we can't just flip-flop on views of players from year to year. How we need to have a longer view, that the style can't keep being changed while expecting the players to adapt quickly to the shift in philosophy. But, you also can't keep banging your head against a wall and expect a different result. If something positive doesn't happen and soon, which also could mean a trade and infusion of talent, like the rumors regarding Evander Kane, then Sather and possibly AV need to go. If that happens, don't be shocked if Sather reaches out to Messier, getting permission from Edmonton, to lead this squad. To be clear, I am not advocating a change of that sort, but if it does transpire, I would not be shocked.