Webster describes Charade as: A guessing game in which each syllable of a word to be found is represented by a tableau or by dramatic action.
Tableau: A vivid representation; specif., a representation of some scene by the grouping of persons who remain silent and motionless in appropriate postures.
This then is what Tom Renney and Slick Sather and Don Baloney are trying to pull off by sending Tom Renney to Hartford for about a week. Renney is to look over some top prospects to see if any can be brought up to the Rangers to help their drive toward a playoff spot. Maybe some scoring punch, maybe some toughness and stability on defense. Don't bet on it. What scorer or scorers is he going to bring up and give an honest shot at making the team? He has a thirty goal scorer by the name of Petr Prucha who can't get more than ten minutes of ice time and most of it is on the fourth line.
And what do we hear about Petr Prucha? We hear his name being bandied about in trade rumors for the likes of Martin Rucinsky and Peter Forsberg. One, Rucinsky, has been recycled through the Rangers twice already and has not scored thirty goals once in his fifteen year NHL career. The other, Forsberg, has missed sixteen games to injuries and has scored all of eight goals. To add insult to injury, Forsberg and the Flyers, have intimated that Forsberg will resign with the Flyers as a free agent at the end of the season. So for six weeks we give away a thirty goal scorer for a player, past his prime, and prone to injuries.
That's not all. The Flyers want Dubinsky and/or Montoya thrown in the deal. Why not throw in Renney, the Flyers could use a coach. The deal for Rucinsky is just as bad. Ole JD, wants Dubinsky and Prucha for the journeyman Rucinsky. How about that. Everyone wants Prucha except the Rangers. Everyone wants Dubinsky but he can't play for the Rangers. However, all this will be resolved by Tom Renney spending a couple of days watching the Wolfpack practice. The Wolfpack have fought their way up to second place in the Atlantic Division of the AHL. What's the chances they dive after Renney's visit?
Brendan Shanahan says the team doesn't shoot enough. He says the Rangers average one shot every thirty seconds on the power play. Shanahan says the Rangers pass the puck too much. The other night The Perimeter Prince's of Jagr, Straka and Nylander all getting over twenty two minutes of ice team each managed to get all of seven shots on goal, which included six power plays, and no shots in the third period. Jagr got five of the shots while Straka and Nylander did their figure eights. Prucha with 9:27 of ice time, very little in the third, and mostly on the fourth line got three shots on goal. Shanahan says that something has to change.
So amid all this, Renney goes to Hartford. Renney, who believes that all the Rangers need is to rest and rethink and all will be fine. Ah yes, there will be a brighter day tomorrow. Renney will return probably with Dubinsky in tow and he will insert him on the second line to start the game and then Dubs will be back on the fourth line and will probably log all of five minutes and Renney will claim it's too early for Dubs and Don Baloney will claim he is too young to play in the NHL, disregarding the fact that a player younger than Dubinsky is leading the league in scoring.
What Renney, I mean Sather should do, is bring up Dubinsky, Dawes and Callahan and play them as a unit either as number two or three line. They should get no less than fifteen minutes of ice time. Shanahan should be moved up to the number one line and Nylander dropped down
to either two or three center. Hall, Hossa and Jason Ward should be used as trade bait (hah!) or put on waivers. Serious consideration should be given to Wolfpack defensemen Baranka, Lampman and Girardi to replace the likes of Malik, Rachunek and Aaron Ward who should be dangled as trade bait or put on waivers.
Drastic? You bet, but this team is going nowhere with one line that refuses to adapt and a defense that is too soft. We also need a new coach and new GM but until we get a new owner we are stuck with these clowns. We Ranger fans deserve better. What we want from a coach is action not platitudes. What we want from our players is an ability to adapt to the different nuances of the game, not to stick to the same pattern, the same style. That pattern, that style has seen us lose eleven of our last sixteen and fall in a three way tie for the last playoff position, and the fourteenth place team five points behind the Rangers. The Rangers, the team that Larry Brooks, Stan Fischler and Boomer Esiason all picked to win the Stanley Cup at the beginning of the season. What the hell do they know?
ICINGS:
January 21, 2007
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Rangers' Punch Lacks Power
NY Post
Power Outage
Newsday
Major Search In Minors
Journal News
Rangers Have Plenty Of Things To Fix During Break
Wild's Zuccarello set to miss weeks after surgery
15 hours ago
Brooks said: "I want Renney this week to make personnel evaluations based on the best interests of the Rangers. And in conjunction with Renney's visits to Wolf Pack practices, I want Sather to use waivers to cut the safety net of veterans the head coach has used as a security blanket right out from under him.
I want to see two or three fresh faces - Brandon Dubinsky, and maybe Ryan Callahan, maybe Lauri Korpikoski, maybe Dane Byers, maybe Nigel Dawes - when the Rangers reconvene Thursday.
I want evidence that management understands that the Same Old Same Old won't cut it"
There is a big consensus building and it is no more 'same old same old' and no more charades! This team will have boo bird droppings all over them if they don't change.
wes putnam-The fans could rise up and boo them out of the garden.
Well, they did it. Sather, Renney and Maloney have certainly gotten it wrong.
Instead of looking to unload the weakest links, they have placed Kasparaitis on waivers. Unfairly, he's been made an example of, when it's been all too clear that Malik, Rachunek and Ward need to go. There is rampant talk about freeing up $3.3 mil. to help clear the way for Forsberg. As we know all too well, he's past his prime, injury prone and could more than likely bolt back to Phili or Sweden after a year.
Was that the sound of a toilet flushing away the season?
This was not the way to salvage it. As one of the very few on D to hit and be a presence, I'm saddened and angry.
Maybe New York Rangers funs should
stop going to home games,maybe then Mr.Dolan may fire GM.Sather and his clowns(coaches)who are clueless.
kaspar fan-They will bring up a young guy and either sit him on the bench or swap him with Pock while the same stiffs play.
agizzmo-You may have the only method to cure this sickness.
This is a good forum for true Ranger fans, unlike the YAHOO bunch of chickenhawks. There I proposed in about May 2006, that Rangers look for Ted Nolan's phone number. Unbeknowst to me, this was exactly what Islanders were doing at the time and later on, it became a double-whammy for me, because our good friend Neil Smith refused to manage this "brave" and was promptly disposed of.
Unlike the MSG nepotistic clique, Islanders want to make play-offs, the Nolan-headed junta just wants to make money - on the backs of the "true blue" Rangers' fans. What a shame that most Rangers blgs and forums dump on individual players, your Tom Poti is doing fine at Isles, 90% of players traded from the Rangers to other clubs were so liberated and their carrers enhanced by being traded from this MSG heaven... Yeah, trade Prucha for anybody, I feel for the guy, he deserves it to be a star in another team, remembr,they sold Doug Weight to Buffalo for $1 way back. The farce was interrupted temporarily in 1994 when the Edmonton imports got the Cup, but now it's back to same old MSG backbiting and favoritism. Does anyone know who are the scouts for the Rangers, so we can punish them ? Because they missed Rafalski, Gionta, Faneuf,etc. etc. I sense that the last seasons' player revolt showed the players the futility of such action, the coach Renney will never be fired, will never be blamed for beaurocratic style of coaching incompatible with any sport, least of all ice hockey. We all see Armani suits, yes, the "suits" and ties, fondly mentioned by the paid lackeys on TV. What we do not see is coach hell bent on victory, pissed off at his players before the game starts, for no reason whatsoever, perhaps to get them pissed off too, because as the saying goes, "the happy players do not win their games".
Cheers Everyone
rad-Nolan is too strong for Sather. Think of this. Instead of Chara or Witt Sather chose Aron Ward. Instead of going after Arnott we chose Cullen. A team without a second line center, an enforcer or a tough stay at home clear the crease defenseman. Oh well, sadly Renney will be here foreever.
Keep smiling!