See. It was the porous Flyer D and goaltending that brought out that great O output. Against the best defensive team in the East the Rangers were impotent. As usual, the Rangers failed to show up last night. But remember, this was Ottawa and they were in Canada. The Rangers are 0-3 against Ottawa and are 0-8 against all Canadian teams. Woe Canada! More woes? The Ranger PP was 0-4 and the latest malaise has now reached 2-21. And we go to Montreal Saturday. The House of Horrors!
Want more? The Islanders tied us for 8th place. The Islanders! Imagine living the entire off season that the Islanders were in the playoffs and the Rangers were golfing. The genius coach said he didn't like the first forty minutes. Only the first forty? We got ten shots in the last twenty. Wow!
Want more woes? The Penguins traded for Jerome Iginla leaving Ottawa coach Paul MacLean to remark, "I don't even know why we'll bother playing the playoffs." Iginla had his choice of destinations. Obviously, one wasn't the Rangers. But who needs Iginla when we have signed Mats Zuccarello, who is a nice, good player but the coach has to revamp his lineup to make sure that Zucs gets his quality 4-5 minutes.
Last night's game was best summed up by former Ranger Ron Duguay. It's too bad Lundqvist didn't skate up ice and try to score a goal. If he had the coach would probably only give him 4-5 minutes of ice time. Imagine being Henrik Lundqvist, arguably the best money goalie in the NHL and have this collection of has beens and never was, being 'coached' by a loser. Hang in there Henrik, there is a better day tomorrow.
ICINGS: Thought for the day and the season. "For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible. For those who do believe, none is necessary."
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4 hours ago
Mike I wouldn't go as far as "collection of has beens and never was." These guys don't respond anymore to coach idiot. We have a collection of underachieving players. All of them, including Nash, are underachieving. Every guy to a man in our line up comes in knowing how to play offense until the coach sucks the life right out of them by smothering them with shot blocking defense. His answer to everything is 'we're not blocking enough shots" - I subscribe to the school of Babcock who said early in the season that his team doesn't have to block shots if they have the puck. Now that man has a team that has to think and play defense first because they are nowhere near a cup contender and making the playoffs would be success for them. We are beyonsd that or at least we are supposed to be. The Wings are in 6th place in the West with 4 more points than the Rangers because Babcock knows how to adjust his game plan according to the players he has. He knows how to set lines. He knows how a PP should work. The players are conditioned to listen to the coach and they pretty much do. I'm not willing to throw any of our talent away until we have a coach who can coach. Torts can't find his a** with two hands. The practice lines today were: Hagelin-Stepan_Nash, Kreider-Richards-Zuccarello, Boyle-Miller-Callahan, Pyatt-Newbury-Gaborik. All this coach does to "spark" offense is change the lines. IT'S NOT WORKING! But its all he has. Every team in the league can predict exactly what we are going to do. Last night Giannone said that coach Paul MacLean was yelling to his team to keep the puck off the boards. That's our offensive strategy. They keep the puck safely on the boards and protect it with their bodies to keep it in the offensive zone. MacLean on the other hand wants the puck in the center of the ice so his players can shoot from areas where they are more likely to score. Is it riskier? Yes. Does it create offense? Yes. Is protecting the puck against the boards with your body safer? Yes. Does it create offense? No. The Sens have a million injuries and look at the success they are having. The Rangers coaching is horrendous. This guy has to go if we are ever going to have a chance to win anything.
So now we were shut out and Zuccarello will most likely play tomorrow. He will have the best chance to score a goal because he's been playing for another coach all season. But it won't last because he'll be called out an humiliated for all of his defensive errors and he will join the ranks of an offense who's afraid to make plays because of the rathe of the little dictator.
Andy, I think its so awesome that you met Mike Babcock. I loved his book. I admire him as a coach of course but also as a person. He's one guy I always say I want to meet and I hope to someday.
About last night...pathetic, I'm exhausted from this garbage and I don't even want to talk about it.
After the Philly game the little dictator said "our offensive guys were able to score goals because they let the offense come to them and they were able to create." WTF does this even mean? Let the offense come to you? He makes these vague ramblings up in his little pea brain. He sounds like such a moron which I suppose makes sense since he is one. Last week after one of our dismal efforts, cant recall which one, Sam asked JT if anything stood out to him about the offense, anything that he noticed. The brilliant mastermind of a coach replied "no, no Sam, I can't say that it did" Awesome.
Replace the GM and Head coach with Iron Mike! I bet this team would play with some heart then...
Tort-o-rella....Tort-o-rella...
Oh man no doubt Dan. There's also no doubt Rangers desperately need to replace both the GM and coach. We need a GM who can pick a coach and a coach who can coach both defense AND offense. So frustrating.
Poor Gaby was pulled aside for 12 minutes in practice yesterday to get an earful from the coach who seems to plan to drop him to the 4th line but we'll have to see if that actually materializes. Andrew Gross asked Gaby if he agreed with Torts assessments but Gaby avoided answering the question. Gross wrote his thoughts about the meeting in his blog, bottom line is his opinion is exactly what we already know, "the marriage between coach and player is in the stage of irreconcilable differences."
Tort-o-rella... Tort-o-rella