So there’s Theo Fleury, the league’s second leading scorer and starting All Star winger for Team North America, moseying down the locker room corridor before last night’s match against the expansion Wild.
Let’s find out what’s on his mind.
“The waiting; I hate the waiting,” Fleury said after placing his sticks in the appropriate spot two hours before the opening faceoff. “It really gets to me.”
The waiting presumably has gotten to all the Rangers; the waiting for a win, that is. Prior to last night’s match, the Blueshirts had gone nine games and 27 days since their last victory. Since their 6-3 victory over the Panthers at the Garden that night, the Rangers had lost seven in regulation, tied one and lost one in overtime, skidding to eight games below NHL break-even.
“Everyone talks about how we have to do this or we have to do that, and everyone’s probably right, but what we have to do is win a darn hockey game,” said Fleury, who will be making his seventh All Star appearnce when the puck is dropped in Denver on Feb. 4. “Maybe you don’t realize how hard it is to win a game until you get into a situation like the one we’re in now, but it’s not easy.
“And what makes it tougher is that everybody in the league plays such a cautious, conservative style.”
Well, everyone except the Rangers, who continue to attempt to win shootouts even though their weapons have been short of ammunition for weeks. The dry spells up and down the roster are astounding. The inefficiency of the power play is astounding.
“Honest, I don’t think anybody could have expected this,” said Fleury, whose 56 points (24-42) had him six behind Colorado’s Joe Sakic for the Art Ross lead. “I think the one thing everyone was pretty confident in was out ability to score, and to score on the power play.”
The power play went into last night’s match an unimaginable 1-for-43 during the winless streak. Worse than that, the power play unit was minus-three in the nine games after having allowed four shorthanded goals, the fourth coming during Saturday afternoon’s lethargic 4-1 loss in Boston when the Blueshirts couldn’t be bothered getting back on an odd-man situation.
“Our power play is being outworked pretty regularly right now, and I don’t think that’s an acceptable principle,” said Ron Low. “To play on an NHL power play is a privilege, not a God-given right, and I think there are a lot of guys that should be looking in the mirror and wondering if they’re working hard enough to score some goals.”
Mark Messier, who continues to insist that he’s perfectly healthy despite visual evidence to the contrary, entered last night’s match without a point in eight straight games. Adam Graves had no goals and three assists in nine games, one goal and four assists in the previous 19. Valeri Kamensky entered with no goals and two assists in his last 10 matches. Mike York had gone seven straight without a point, 10 straight without a goal.
“Our attitude as a hockey club has to change,” said Low. “If we think that playing Minnesota is going to be easy, we’re sadly mistaken.
“We have to go out and play our best game in a month.”
Or keep waiting for a win.
Rangers entered the match 25th overall, three points behind Minnesota in the league standings. Blueshirts were nine points out of a playoff spot and five points ahead of the 30th-overall Panthers … Mike Richter was in nets last night with Kirk McLean backing up and Vitali Yeremeyev back in Hartford … Jeff Toms, acquired on waivers from the Islanders on Saturday, was expected to make his Ranger debut … Sather confirmed on Saturday that the Rangers had no obligation to place Johna Witehall on waivers, but did so, “to give us flexibility to make moves, like picking up Toms.” … Rangers are home tomorrow to the Flyers, then on Thursday to the Maple Leafs.