Though it is impossible to predict general manager Glen Sather’s next move, last night’s benching of Wade Redden just 2:05 into the second period makes it likely that the Blueshirts will recall a defenseman from Hartford for the three-game western tour that begins with a game in Phoenix on Saturday.
Redden, who was scratched twice the middle of last month, never got on the ice again after his blunder contributed to the Sergei Samsonov deflection at 2:05 that gave Carolina a 3-1 lead, just 41 seconds after Ryan Callahan had scored for the Rangers.
It was a killer from which the Blueshirts never came close to recovering.
“It was my decision,” coach John Tortorella said following the Rangers’ 5-1 loss at the Garden. “I don’t want to say more.”
Tortorella reinserted Ales Kotalik into the lineup after six straight scratches, with the move bumping Donald Brashear into street clothes for the sixth time in the last seven games. Brashear made no impact at all in 5:35 of ice in Monday’s 4-3 loss to the Penguins.
It is probably asking too much of Sather to expect him to place Brashear on waivers before the charter takes off for the desert.
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The Rangers had a meeting in the locker room following the defeat in which Sather addressed the team. The talking points memo delivered verbally focused on staying together as a team.
“We have a lot of negative stuff coming down on this team right now,” captain Chris Drury said. “During the game, after the game, before the game, I think we have to do the best we can to stay together.
“We got into this little four-game skid together, and we are going to get out of it together.”
Perhaps the “negative stuff” to which Drury referred to are the scores being printed in newspapers.
“[What concerns me most] is our mental state,” Tortorella said. “We need to stay together. That’s what we have to do.
“It’s an unforgiving league. No one is going to feel sorry for you. We have to regroup as a hockey club. You can’t be pointing a finger at your teammates.”
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Marian Gaborik, a right-handed shooter, played left wing for the first time in his NHL career, skating on a line with center Vinny Prospal and right wing Ryan Callahan.
“I have played it in international competition [for Slovakia] when [Marian] Hossa is on right wing,” Gaborik said. “I got lost sometimes defensively.”
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The Rangers faced a full 2:00 five-on-three against late in the third when both Callahan and Girardi were penalized on the same play.
Incredibly, it marked the third time in the last five games that’s happened to the Blueshirts. Carolina scored its final goal on the five-on-three.
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The Blueshirts, 0-for-4 on the power play, are 0-for-13 in their last five games and 6-for-63 with the man advantage in their last 17 games. . . . The Rangers have lost four in a row in regulation for just the third time since the lockout, and first time since dropping seven in a row in December of 2006. They’re 2-6-1 in their last nine.