Rangers At Critical Stage

This has been one hell of a season. We're up, we're down. We're hot, we're cold. We play sixty minutes, we mail it in. The only thing steady is the coach. No innovative moves, no fire, no emotion, plenty of indecisiveness, lots of tinkering, no overall plan. He is basically the two point coach. He can't coach beyond his nose. He still can't figure out where Eric Staal fits in. Every game sees Staal with different line mates, different positions. Maybe they should pair him with his brother on defense.

I was optimistic when we got Staal. In fact I was excited. Now I'm my usual grumpy self. Same old Rangers. One Cup in seventy five years. WOW! Remember, I said it in one of my early articles, this Ranger team will not win the Cup with this coach. His game tactics are awful. Witness the loss against the Islanders. Let's recap. About a minute to play, the game tied, faceoff to the right of goalie Raanta, the coach pulls Staal who was practically flawless on face offs and inserts Stepan who loses the draw and the Islanders score on the faceoff.

How many games has the other team pulled their goalie and then scored late goals against us? Too many. However, it's the constant line changes they baffle me. With Staal on board and Nash back we should have a high octane type offense. But it's stagnant because none of the lines have the chemistry to click. Kevin Hayes is not a winger, he's a center. Girardi should not be paired on the number one D unit, Klein should.

I've said it many times before. The Rangers will only go as far as Lundqvist will take us. I cringed the other night when a shot went off his mask. This guy goes down and forget the Cup, we won't even make the playoffs. Right now with the Islanders and Penguins charging the playoffs are highly in doubt. There is time to correct the slide and turn it around. We have to find the right line mates for Eric Staal and find them fast. We have to put Kevin Hayes back to center and we have to get Kevin Klein on the top D pairing. And we have to have the coach to start earning his pay. Otherwise it will be early golf for the boys.