he’d appear to be right. but, if they did want to do something about it, it should start with prucha doing something about it, like playing elbows up, head on a pivot. if one guy ran him and lost all his teeth doing it, it would happen less. and you wouldn’t have to use up an additional roster spot.

don’t get me wrong, tough. i think it’s pathetic that sean avery is the only nasty player. Toots tries, but isn’t the real deal. Nor, for my money, are Orr, Hollywood or Struds. They’re somewhere in the middle and that’s their problem. They’re not intimidating enough nor are they talented enough. A single Scott Stevens check or Messier unsolicited punch to the face would do more to protect our team than they could do all season long.

We don’t bang, that’s our problem. We don’t have bangers. we have players.

Prucha, Jagr, Gomez, Straka, Staal, Girardi, Rozival, Callahan, Dawes, Drury, these guys are players and should be playing, not defense.

Our bangers are Avery, Hollweg, Struds and Orr. That’s it, and Dubinksy, who in my opinion may need to go back to Hartford and refine his game. Give Dawes the puck.

Teams dump the puck into our zone and nail our defenders into next week. We never do this! Renney is hanging his players out to dry, with no retaliation.

In ‘reality’(I’ll have to explain what that means to some of you one day), as much as some of us hate Jags, he isn’t going anywhere. Neither is drury or gomez, not this year anyway.

Salty – I do care about seeing Betts in the mall. It’s not hard to miss the ugliest human being in the world though! I ran into Mess one time while I was working at a rink. He was there watching Lyon. It’s always cool to see these guys out of there element.

There is something that can be done about it, get guys like Orr, Strudwick, & Mara to protect him, and give it back to other teams. Maybe the NYR would get a lift…

Drury needs to get his game going or this team is going nowhere.

I just don’t see this team generate anything offensively. We play defense and wait to score on the PP, and our PP stinks.

A team needs flow and we have none. You can’t say “ok now we’re on the PP, lets go get a goal”. You have to play the whole game that way.

I just can’t believe the team that spends all the money, gets all the high priced UFA’s, has this great goaltender and Hall of Famers play’s not to lose.

This strategy was fine two seasons ago when we were rebuilding and we had Orts, Malik, Ozo, Poti, Rucchin, Hall, Ward and Moore and we were leaning on Jagr, Nylander and Straka to get us wins every night and they responded.

But this team has Avery, Shanahan, Girardi, Staal, Dawes, Drury and Gomez now and should be playing more uptempo offensive hockey. I don’t think Renney has recognized this and I don’t know if he’s able to change. This is his system, this is what makes him successful as a coach.

But this team has better pieces now, it’s time this team played a different brand of hockey. And Shanny is such the good soldier, publicly backing his coach and supporting his system, but this team has so much more to offer than playing defense every night.

bklynblue,

Come on. Gretzky in the same discussion. Prucha needs his own bodyguard? How about he starts with his own elbows and keeping his head up, before he’s given not only his own slot but another body as protection? Though the team should be more aggro about policing than they are, as a whole.

reg dunlop,

Zubov was an excellent player from the start and never flagged. The Rangers made a mistake getting rid of him, obviously, but it was only because they felt Leetch was simply strong enough for the team. No one ever thought Zubov was anything but really good. At least, not that I know.