First of all, a Happy Easter and a wonderful Passover to all of you out there in Rangerland. At least, the few who are left. Seriously, enjoy the day with family and friends.
What can you say that hasn't already been said. The Rangers lost again in Montreal. So what else is new? Another loss, another shutout. Price has now four consecutive shutouts over our heroes. The loss was also the second straight 3-0 loss following the Ottawa game. The Rangers are now 0-9 against Canadian teams. Maybe Monday will be a day of resurrection against the Jets. Maybe.
The Rangers are in total disarray. Proven goalscorers have no luck in finding the back of the net. The goalposts. The crossbar. The sides of the net. The glass behind the net. Yes, all of these but not the net behind the goalies. The coach plays games with his carousel of line changes. He has no clue. He has succeeded in turning one of the pure goal scorers in the game, Gaborik, a gentleman, a good guy, into a floundering figure of his great past. I believe he played on all four lines last night. What a shame.
Sean Avery said it best: "Fire this CLOWN." Fire this clown before he destroys all vestiges of what this team is and could be. Fire this clown before he embarrasses more guys like Gaborik with his public one-on-one lectures. Fire this clown to bring some sort of decency to the Garden. "Fire this CLOWN."
ICINGS:
It looks like Sean's comment regarding Tortorella is resonating across Rangerland:
related:
Katie Strang / ESPN NY:
Avery on Torts: 'Fire this CLOWN'
Pat Leonard / NY Daily News / The Blueshirts Blog:
Callahan and Rangers on Sean Avery: 'He did not speak for us as a team when he was here and certainly does not now'
Puck Daddy:
Sean Avery on NY Rangers: ‘Fire this Clown’
CBC Sports:
Sean Avery calls for firing of Rangers' Tortorella
NY Rangers blog:
Happy Easter John Tortorella, You're Officially on the Hot Seat
Atta boy Sean...perfect statement at the perfect time.
It's funny, Aves always said he didn't pay attention to hockey outside of playing it. Maybe a dinner with Gaborik & Lundqvist sparked the beautiful tweet. Either way, what needed to be said was said and you can always count on Sean for the truth. AVERY....AVERY....AVERY....
Oh yeah, simply pathetic last night. I've never seen a team so un-energetic in my life. They have quit on this guy pure and simple
Awww what a good little obedient team and captain we have defending the coaching staff over Avery...Good boy Callahan, now go get maimed for me....good little boy....here's a treat....Lost a lot of respect for captain cally on this. A response was not even neeeded by the rangers let alone the players. What are you going to say when torts get's fired in 4 days Cally? You've been whipped for too long "Captain". If only this team had half the heart and balls to stand up to problem that Avery does...
The way I see it Torts has already written his own leaving card
"Enough is enough. He's embarrassed himself, he's embarrassed the organization... Send him home. He doesn't belong in the league."
The sooner it happens, the better.
Luke
amen Luke, amen..
Avery obviously must sense some kind of tipping point in the team's attitude towards Tortorella and he's certainly not shy about picking his spot to help push things along.
In a weird way this may force Torts to play Zucc even more. The team may have quit on him, but I think Zucc wants to prove that he belongs back in the NHL. So Zucc, like he did last night might be one of the best offensive players Torts can call on. Did you notice how he got a surprising 18:16 of ice time last night. Torts is desperately looking for goals now after gutting the offense all season and Zucc may be one of the few options that he can count to give 100%.
That's our Sean speaking the truth and at the opportune moment...he's always been an expert at timing. Man I miss him.
Andy- don't be so hard on Cally. He is ths captain and has to calm the waters it's his job. Plus Cally has no issues with torts because torts loves him. He's just trying to protect the rest of the guys so they're not all put on the spot. Plus all he really said was Sean doesn't speak for them, notice he did not pledge any loyalty towards Torts, nor did he say the team is behind their coach or even that they like or respect him. Very carefully worded.
How many times were the lines shuffled last night? A dozen? Gaby off the 4th line at the 10 min mark of the first... Torts is desperate now. He just wants to win so he can save his ass so badly he'll give ice time to anyone he thinks may score. The lines were juggling so fast you couldn't keep up!! He's panicking folks, he's feeling the heat and I can't wait to see him go. It's going to be a celebrated day for all.
I think it was very poorly worded. All he had to say was "those are Sean's thoughts and opinions". End. Not, "he didn't speak for us then and he certainly doesn't speak for us now." That's extra, and it's a jab. And why are the rangers and the players even answering questions about this? A simple 'No comment" is, well, pretty simple.
" Did you notice how he got a surprising 18:16 of ice time last night. Torts is desperately looking for goals now after gutting the offense all season and Zucc may be one of the few options that he can count to give 100%."
JB- YES! I was thinking the same thing. I said on the last thread that Zucc will be most likely to score since he's been playing for another coach. As Zucc said after the game, "over there its more puck possession and here its dump and chase." I thought Zucc had the puck a lot. Lets see how long that lasts. Last season Zucc was jerked around, diminishing ice time, back and fourth from the Whale coach couldn't trust him... Now all of a sudden he gets 18 mins in his first game back. Yeah, he's desperate. Coach screamed at Hagelin on the bench last night, benched Callahan for 4 mins...CALLAHAN! That never happens. He had LESS ice time than Zucc. Coach is turning on his own boys now. What will happen tomorrow? Maybe he'll have a full on melt down and Brad rides the pine!
On Avery, Who says anything better than Avery? I'm getting such a kick out of watching everyone talk about his tweet all day long. Some of the NYR fan bloggers are out there telling their "public" all the reasons Sean should "shut up" - There are NO reasons. He is a private citizen who made a tweet. There isn't a damn thing anyone can do about it. That's what makes it so epic. Everyone is talking about it but the truth is- he is as free to tweet his thoughts as you and I. I get tweets on my timeline everyday about how Torts should be fired - I tweet it all the time - what's one more? "Fire this CLOWN" - Epic. Simply epic.
Andy- After the Fire this clown tweet went out, Sean tweeted again that he is speaking for the fans. I don't know if your on twitter, if so I want to follow you, but when you look at Sean's "at tweets"- meaning people talking to him- Ranger fans tweet to him every day about how they miss him and how they feel the Rangers need his grit and energy. I think he was fed up and it sparked him to tweet about it. Today ESPNs Katie Strang tweeted Callahan's remarks and Sean Re-tweeted the one where Callahan said he doesn't speak for the team. Jeanine and I think that Sean is trying to tell us that Callahan is right, he doesn't speak for the team. Sean wants to tweet on behalf of the fans. He just has a very in your face way of doing so. But that's why we love him.
Nope don't do the twitter, really want to tho.
What i took it as is "You had no say in anything when you were here, and you certainly don't now". Extra and not necessary.
To me, if Sather/Dolan fire torts this season, they would be proving Avery right. We know Sean left on terrible terms with the organization, do you think they'd really want to show Avery to be correct about the coach that ended his career? They have pretty big egos. I dunno, it's not a bid deal, like i hate ryan callahan now or something dumb like that, his wording just irked me that he and some others might actually still be behind Torts. Which, to me, is f'n scary...
I hope Avery is correct on behalf of the fans. I know he loves the ones like us that have his back and i really hope i'm wrong and his timely tweet can help in ushering out torts. We'll see in time...One thing is for sure, we love Sean f'n Avery!
Andy, You know what's funny? I've been thinking about this since I made my last post and I'm starting to think that you're right and Callahan was taking a bit of a jab at Avery. In actuality, Sean did speak on behalf of the players by saying they all hate Torts, which I don't believe is true. Jeanine and I have been discussing it and she said that she thinks that Cally was probably annoyed by the comment because the Rangers are having enough problems and he's probably trying to keep the room together as Captain. That brings me back to why I said I don't think everyone hates Torts. I was not at all surprised that Stepan defended the coaching staff because Step doesn't have a problem with him. Step is a young guy who seems to have mostly a positive outlook on things. Torts loves Step. He's one of his boys like Callahan and Richards are. When the player is on the coaches good list then he gets all kinds of rewards. If you are on the bad list then you are screwed. This prejudice of the coach is what eventually causes a divide in the room. So the guys on the good list just think he's a tough coach, and the guys on the bad list just think he's an a**hole and they are tired of his BS as Sean said. So we are wondering if Callahan is trying to keep the peace between the guys who want him to stay and the ones who want him gone. Either way that always translates on the ice and a divide is a perfect explanation as to why every once in a while the team looks halfway decent. But once a team heads down this road there's no turning back. I know management doesn't want to fire this coach but if the Rangers keep losing like this and the fans keep talking like this they will have no choice... And yeah you're right, the egos of NYR management are out of control from ownership right on down to our arrogant little coach. They all want to be right so bad they sacrifice the team's opportunities for success. I think it sucks. I feel so sad when I think about the Rangers everyday.
Casey Stengel said: "The secret of managing is to keep the guys who hate you away from the guys who are undecided."
Are Callahan, Stepan and Richards the only guys left in the "undecided camp"?
The offensive melt down has shifted a bunch of fans. Maybe we will see the MSG crowd weigh in pretty soon?
Jen,
It's funny, i've been re-hashing it as well and it's just kind of crazy that an ex-ranger, as you said, is a private citizen and can say what he feels at any time, and it's causing this much of a stir. That's why we love Avery...he knows when and when not to stir it up, Like you were saying earlier JB.
JB,
Love the Stengel quote. It'll be interesting to see the crowd tonight if we go down early again. What's funny is Richie and Avery are real close, so Brad must really be walking a tight rope here..
Andy,
Also, Lundqvist and Avery I believe are still partners in a restaurant.
So good point that both of them were probably put in an uncomfortable situation in the locker room. Because Torts has to be wondering now if anyone on the team is talking to Avery.
It certainly can't help an already tense situation, now that the Isles are coming up to take 8th spot.
Avery lives up to his Grate One heritage even in retirement. Once a pest always a pest.
Yes Sean and Henrik are still business partners and friends. Henrik is also good friends with Gaborik, and Aaron Voros (who is still very close to Sean). Henrik's circle of friends have the tendency to be on the coaches sh*t list which often makes me wonder what Henrik thinks of how they are treated. Do you remember how Tortorella would make rude comments in the media about Voros after games? In a nutshell he pretty much summed Aaron up like this: He's a nice guy, everybody likes him in the room but as a hockey player he sucks. Jeanine and I were so turned off by the way he treated Voros. He used to play him 3 mins a night and only if he fought. A human punching bag. Anyway, I have always been a believer in the saying where there is smoke there is fire and there has been a lot of smoke. Avery is just fanning the flames in order to return the favor. I can't wait until this guy is gone.
Hey not to kick dirt on John Tortorella but there are better coaches out there.
BTW This was a tweet by Sean from yesterday. Check out the 2nd half:
Find myself #listeningto Gotta Get Up by Harry Nilsson.....Relax with the official statements its kinda embarrassing. :) :) :) :)
Gaborik, Avery, Lundqvist and Voros all used to ride to games and practice together, go to each others houses and like you said Sean and Henrik co-own Tiny's. So, yeah, like i mentioned in the beginning, all it takes is a dinner between the 3 friends and boom Avery says "If you guys get blown out again, i'll tweet for the fans to really crank up the heat." I mean, these 4 guys plus Richie are all very close. They (Henrik & Marian) must be talking to Avery. Once a close friend always a close friend. I'd love to hear tortorella's speech: "Now, we all know Sean still lives 10 miles away and 6 of you are his good friends. But if you want to apart of this team, you'll never talk to him AGAIN!!!!!!!!"
The ghost of Avery continues to haunt you torts....