Fire Renney!
Oh right. The Rangers already did that last year. But then why is it almost impossible to tell the difference between the team that got defense-minded Tom Renney fired in February and the one now coached by offense-inclined John Tortorella that has scored two goals or fewer in eight of the last 10 games while going 3-7 in the process?
The Blueshirts lost again last night at the Garden, this time 3-2 to the Panthers with an effort that might have been acceptable if NHL games were 26 minutes long rather than 60.
The Rangers have lost three straight and five of the last seven in regulation on Broadway while losing four of their five, five of their last seven and seven of the last 10 in regulation overall.
Indeed, their 4-9-1 record since opening their 7-1 getaway came to a screeching halt on Oct. 19, marks the team’s worst 14-game stretch under one coach in the five seasons since the end of the lockout.
So where’s the beef?
Well, though at first glance the beef is with just about every forward on the team unable to score — and that is just about everyone other than Marian Gaborik and Vinny Prospal — it actually rests on a unit that does not play with urgency until it’s too late, as they did again last night after falling behind late in the second.
It’s inexplicable, really it is, that the Rangers continue to play with less than a maximum effort for a coach who alleges to demand one (or else!), but that’s where the Blueshirts are more than a quarter of the way through the season.
“There should have been a lot more urgency because it wasn’t getting done until there were five minutes left in the second period,” said Prospal, who scored to give the Rangers a 1-0 first-period lead but who was on for all three Florida goals. “We put a lot of pressure on them in the third, but once again didn’t get the result.”
“We competed better, but it still wasn’t for the full 60 minutes,” said Ryan Callahan. “It’s not that we don’t want to, every guy in this room does, but we have to be more urgent from beginning to end.”
It will be one-and-done for Ales Kotalik as the left wing with Prospal and Gaborik, with Tortorella announcing after the game that he doesn’t believe No. 12 can handle the job. It was pretty much one period and done for Donald Brashear as the left wing with Chris Higgins and Callahan, which was one period too many.
Indeed, though Gaborik got his 16th to bring the Rangers back to within 3-2 at 6:01 of the third after the Panthers had scored three straight by taking advantage of assorted blunders in all three zones, the transcendent winger had one of his poorest games with and without the puck.
Creating turnovers that lead to odd-man attacks have pretty much become a thing of the past for the Rangers. So too are homerun passes from the defense springing forwards. Instead, the Rangers have settled back into the a chip-it-out, chip-it-in team they were last season.
“There were a lot like this last year where we tried to come back at the end,” said Lundqvist.
There were a lot like this last year, which is why they fired the coach. Didn’t they?