Maybe coach disagreeable is correct when he says that talking Cup is premature. The Rangers lost for the second straight time to the New Jersey Devils, 1-0, last night in a game that showed that the special teams were not so special. The pk gave up the game winning goal and the power play, boy that's an oxymoron, went 0-3. In the last 24 games the Ranger power play is 4-67, and the coach refuses to discuss it.
Actually, in all fairness, the cowered blame stream media, refuses to bring it up at the press conferences. You blame them? The last time someone brought it up was the last question that scribe ever brought up again. Just looking at the coach's scowl last night you knew no one would have the guts to ask that question. I still think we need a coach to come out for the winning games and a coach to come out for the losing games.
The game. The Rangers shot blanks all night. Yeah, I know Artie put one in with about 3.5 seconds on the clock, which was disallowed by Gaborik being gently shoved into Brodeur. But these things could go either way. The coach fumed and stormed and glared into the press conference. No fuming and growling about the inept power play. No. I won't talk about that.
Needless to say a game like this requires many changes from our coach. Line changes happen faster than politicians changing positions. Brad Richards, in a slump, was relegated to the fourth line in the third period. Now that makes sense, doesn't it? How does a guy get out of a slump by playing with non-offensive players? Is it supposed to be punishment for not scoring?
Even Lundqvist gave a mild rebuke to the teams PP, he said "one goal and it's the difference." That one goal may yet come back to haunt us, 4-67 and counting. Wow! That hurts. But if I know things in Rangerland, the practice session will be devoted to working on the penalty kill. Got to shore up that defense. That's what wins Cups. Providing you score a goal.
ICINGS: Now I am all for parades to honor teams. But in less than a day we put together a huge parade for a bunch of millionaire players, calling them heroes, and basically giving them the city, two cities if you count New Jersey's love fest and we can't come up with the dime and the time to honor our real heroes, the men and women of our Armed Forces. Amazing. Our fearless Mayor is waiting on the Pentagon for instructions. Instructions for what? He's already banned salt, sugar, cigarettes and fresh air and now he needs instructions. It didn't stop the city of St. Louis from having their parade. Congratulations to the Giants. God Bless our men and women in the Armed Forces.
Wednesday, February 08, 2012
Special Team Failures
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Good analysis Mike.
As far as the press is concerned, you are as good as your last win or as bad as your last loss. The press does not do a very good job of evaluating a team for that reason.
The better evaluation is looking at the team as a whole. It is a top four team in the Conference, but it has too many weaknesses to win it all as it is now.
What do we need?
#1 A point shot on the power play. Until we have a real threat, teams know they can collapse the box and cut off all passes without fear. Coach cannot fix this. Sather can. But, it will be at a price and this may not be the year to pay it.
#2 A goal scorer on left wing. Until we have a threat from the left, goalies can cheat to the right.
#3 A body clearing nasty defensemen. In the playoffs, everyone will be in Hanks face. They need to pay a price for that.
To have a strong shot at the Cup, you need all three. Get two, and you might be as good as Boston. One, and you are going to have problems with more than just Boston.
and one more observation
The worst news last night was that Phoenix won. A perfect acquisition for the Rangers power play and on left wing would be Ray Whitney. He will not be available if Phoenix continues to make a push for a playoff spot.
Torts is a defensive specialist, all things come from D, he doesn't know how to think from an offensive perspective. He won't discuss the pp and doesn't want to talk about it because he has no clue as to what to do about it. Every decision Torts makes is based on defensive play, guys move up and down the lines based on how well they play defensively, not offensively. He's only concerned with what we do on the D side which is the exact reason our pp is so atrocious. Our guys are too concerned with making a defensive mistake so they don't want to take any chances jumping up into the play, even with a man advantage. Torts and Brad both say we need to keep it simple...how much more simple can we get? One shot and the puck is cleared, we don't attack, go for the net or jump in for rebounds because we are too busy getting back to protect the puck. Torts is all D all the time, I can't understand the fans who believe he's an agreessive coach, we have no aggression offensively AT ALL. Just because he has a loud bark doesn't mean he's aggressive, just a fool. I'm sorry but this coaching staff knows absolutely nothing about offense. The players we have that are underacheiving (Dubi, Brian, Artie, even Brad) is because we are a defense first, minded team. Those guys can produce much more but they never will reach their full potential under this coaching staff and that lack of chance taking will cost big time in the playoffs.
Section 335-Can't see us pulling off a Grand Slam and getting three key players to help out. We would be lucky to get one and build toward next year. I don't see a Cup with this team this year.
Its sad that we have to root for the misery of another team to benefit ourselves.
jeanine 1994-The team is built around Lundqvist. The coach knows Lundqvist is a winner and he has built the team to protect him and keep the scoring down.
That'a why when we lose a low scoring game he goes after the defense. Rarely blames the offense. And he is an up tempo coach?
His up tempo is running off the ice after a loss - yelling.
I agree we will not pull off our three needs. I hope we pull off one, so we can at least win a round or two