For the first twenty minutes the Rangers fooled everybody, probably even themselves. They played a pretty good hockey game, for twenty minutes. The only problem is they have these stupid rules in hockey that says you must play sixty minutes. Yup, sixty minutes and the operative word here is PLAY!
How bad were they the last forty minutes? Henrik Lundqvist says he lost concentration, he wasn't focused. Too bad he didn't say that before the game, we could of got the Wall Street Protesters to infiltrate the Garden and had the game called due to a pollution problem.
The Rangers got sixteen shots on goal the first period and seven each in the 2nd and 3rd periods. Yes, two goals were waived off in the first period due to interference calls that no penalties were called. Weird? Let's see. The Ranger player gets pushed into the goalie but no penalty on him because he was pushed by a Toronto player who also did not get a penalty.
This sets up all kinds of interesting scenarios in the future. Players crowd around your goalie, push them into the goalie. No harm, no penalty, no goal. Remember when Dominick Hasek used to knock the net off the moorings on breakaways?
On the ice it was the same old story. Newbury had a fight, didn't do too well and got all of 3:07 of ice time. Same story there. Wolski, who was to be a first-liner, wasn't, didn't get a shot on goal, didn't play well and got 12:05 of ice time. Same story there.
I found it interesting this morning that most of the blame stream media mentioned that there were a couple of chants for Avery last night. You would never know that listening to the homer twins, Sam and Joe, last night. However, if last night's performance is indicative of what we can expect the rest of the year the chants will become more colorful and personal.
The more things change the more they stay the same.
BTW. The Rangers lost 4-2.
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This team is finding its natural place in the standings: 11th in the standings. Doing the math, 16 goals in 8 games is a whopping offensive output of 2 goals per game. Pitiful.
This offense is not working, and Torts is not the guy to figure it out. Torts is a so called 'motivator' coach. He is not an X's and 0's guy, did you notice he doesn't even attempt to diagrams plays during a timeout. All Torts can do is re-shuffle the lines every period, and that hasn't worked and it will not work.
I think it will have to get worse before it gets better.
Hey Pundit I was at the game last night. Lord have mercy. First of all I have to say that i pretty much go to the home opener every year and i have never been to an opener with a quieter crowd. It was actually very sad to witness. The season has only just begun and the life was sucked out of the building before the puck dropped. The transformation of the Garden is kind of strange. it looks beautiful what they've done so far but it was a strange feeling walking in the door and saying to yourself where am I?
Anyway the Rangers are playing like a team who no longer want to play for the coach. It is happening much sooner than i expected but we might be in luck after all. Even though I have little faith in Sather's ability to fire this clown, i do believe his hand can be forced if things continue to go this way and he wants to save his own job. Coach moron blew it when he got greedy when it came to Avery. He was playing his game so perfectly getting many to believe that Sean's ship has simply just sailed until this season he made his vendetta clear by sending him to the Whale. The overall attitude of the fans regarding the coach seems to have changed due to this eye opening move. Now all of a sudden people who have been supporting coach idiot and have been telling me that i don't know anything about hockey are stating to notice all of the things i have been saying all along! The guy is simply clueless plain and simple. I'm so done with him it's not even funny lol!
1) Its natural to get upset losing the home opener, especially after all the hype etc. However statisticly a team comin ghome after a long road trip usually stumbles
2) I guess as a non ranger fan (nor a hater) I have more perspective? Only if they stink up the joint the rest of this home stand would I start to get antsy.
3) Its a LONG season. Geez the Flyers had 9 goals scored on them at home last night by a team that is probably gonna finish near the bottom
To the points made about Tortorella's future:
I think Torts is realizing that the team is starting to tune him out. I say this based on his attitude at the postgame press conference, where he was not lashing anyone specifically, and it seemed like he wanted to work out a solution with the team rather than dictating to them. He's been around and I expect him to do everything he can to take pressure off the players if they keep losing.
About not sweating early season losses: It seems like this team always goes into the last month of the season needing to put some wins together to get into the playoffs. I don't think they can afford to slump early, just because they usually do that in mid season.
This team has to hit on all cylinders in order to win, goaltending, offense, defense, special teams. Take away one or two of those and they lose. Like an off night for Lundqvist. No margin for error and winning ugly will have to the job.
Jen9400-I've heard from others that the crowd was dead except for the Avery chants. You never know from Sam and Joe.
We need a top to bottom cleaning and since I don't see it this will be a worse downer than the 54 year drought.
FAUXRUMORS-I think that bottom feeder may have some competition.
Wes-This team has been carried by Lundqvist and they have shown that they are incapable of picking him up when he has a downer.