Rangers Report Blog

A stomach bug has descended upon Blog Headquarters, which is one of the reasons for the dearth of posts of late.

The good news is I’m the only member of the house currently upright. The bad news? Well, let’s just say my wardrobe has had better days.

Regardless, the Rangers reconvene from the All-Star break at 3 today. If Henrik Lundqvist is still making phantom saves in the dressing room, we’ll understand.

More (hopefully) later…

The amount of hockey I play is inversely proportionate to the amount of hockey the Rangers play.

So, for instance, when the team is on the ice every day and is in the middle of a three-in-four night stretch, I’m probably not going to have a chance to lace ‘em up myself.

And when there’s an All-Star Break and the team doesn’t play for a week, well, you have stretches like this week, when I can play at least once, and sometimes twice a day. So if you’re at the Westchester Skating Academy at lunchtime today—and I’ve already seen some of you there—that’s where you’ll find me.

As for more pressing hockey news—yes, I realize the above doesn’t count—Larry Brooks “spells out more of the salary cap problems”:http://www.nypost.com/seven/01232009/sports/rangers/no_time_for_slats_to_be_cheap_skate_151515.htm that could haunt this team down the stretch.

As we’ve said all along, the problem with Glen Sather’s summertime moves isn’t necessarily what you’re seeing on the ice right now, although that’s certainly part of it. It’s more about how this team has handcuffed itself this season and beyond.

Is there any way out of it? Well, naturally if Sather can succeeed in dumping some salary either on another team or in the minors, the Rangers could be allowed more cap flexibility. But that would involve Sather admitting he made more than a few mistakes last July, which he might not be prepared to do.

I am as guilty as anyone of poking holes in the Rangers’ record this season, as if it’s all a result of smoke, mirrors, and creative accounting.

“The most frustrating first-place team in history.” I’ve had more than one person describe the Rangers as that to me, and given their low-scoring tendencies and somewhat vanilla personality, I can understand why.

And yet, as the team disperses for the All-Star break after “an impressive win last night over the Ducks”:http://www.lohud.com/article/20090121/SPORTS01/901210383/-1/SPORTS, maybe it’s time to start embracing the Rangers for what they are.

As in…

They are a team that has only occasionally budged from their spot atop the standings.

They are a team featuring arguably the best goalie in the game, and one of the best penalty-killing units.

They are a group devoid of any one superstar skater, but they’re also a team that can expect production from various segments of its lineup on any given night.

They are a team in far better shape than they were at this same point the previous two seasons.

Look, no one is engraving Blair Betts’ name into the Stanley Cup just yet. I think we’re all aware that this team needs at least a few upgrades at the trade deadline—perhaps a gritty, top-six forward, perhaps a more commanding, physical presence on the backline (hey, why not both?!)

But there have now been 48 games this season, so it’s no longer fair to say this team’s record is merely a reflection of a fast start. Maybe that’s still not enough to get it over the hump in the playoffs. But it’s still a better starting point than it’s had in the past.
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Also, this is long overdue, but here’s the replay of last week’s video chat, which I was unable to post before.

Alas, dear readers, this is another one of those games when if all communication should cease after a certain point, I would look no further than the offering in the press room dining room.

A smart man would probably avoid it altogether. I have never claimed to being all that smart. Plus, I’m really hungry.

As for news, see the below post for the lineup changes. As Tom Renney said earlier, the moves were in large part about ways to counter the Ducks’ size, which might make sense when it comes to taking out Petr Prucha, but less so with Lauri Korpikoski.

I asked Renney if, six weeks out from the trade deadline, this is one of those games where the Rangers might be able to better identify their needs. Renney said that it wasn’t, that the trends by now are already apparent. But I would think that a game like tonight could underscore how the Rangers’ lack of size up front could be something the team sees it needs to address down the road.

(Of course, I say that, and yet the Rangers also played one of their better games of the season against the Ducks last month, and size wasn’t much of an issue —particularly when Nigel Dawes went around Chris Pronger like a pylon).

Meanwhile, while on the subject of the trade deadline, Renney was asked what role he has in personnel moves, This is a topic that is addressed every once in a while, and the coach always strikes the note, that he’s fortunate to have a voice, but doesn’t get final say.

“He’s been good,” Renney said of Glen Sather. “He talks to us coaches. It hasn’t been part of the covneration. We talk about our roster and how guys are playing and how we can fix our game. But when it comes down to personnel or who’s doing what out there, we pay attention tho the league and our prospect. But until such time when someone else is bringing it up, our concentration should be on our team.”
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If you can’t get enough of me—and I’m pretty sure you can—I’ll be on the radio after the second period with Dave Maloney.

So Tom Renney’s experiment one day becomes a reality the next. The coach will sit down two of his most energetic players in favor of Dan Fritsche, who hasn’t played in 20 games, and Aaron Voros, who has missed the last five.

Renney said the move was more a match-up decision against the bigger, physical Ducks. Although Prucha hadn’t been told as much by Renney, we passed along what the coach told the media after the morning skate.

“You know more than me,” an amused Prucha said. “Aaron is a bigger, stronger guy than me, so he can play more physical. So if coach wants to match up against bigger players, he’s probably a better player than me for that.”

Spoken like a true good soldier.

Meanwhile, Korpikoski didn’t seem too annoyed, either, perhaps because he’s emerged from these benchings before.

“Of course it’s disappointing when you’re not playing,” Korpikoski said. “You want to play every game. But you do what the coach tells you to do. There’s nothing you can say or do. You just keep working hard and when you get the opportunity again, be a little bit better again. I’ve been in this situation before and it doesn’t help to pout. You just have to stay positive and have a good attitude.”

Some other notes:

How exactly should you feel about Brendan Shanahan scoring a goal in his Devils debut? I don’t know. That’s a personal question.

But I’d gather there’s at least a tinge of regret in seeing a one-time heart-and-soul Blueshirt now celebrating in Devils red-white-and-black (and wearing No. 18, no less). It’s true, Shanahan was only a shell of his former self by the end of last season, so slow and ineffective that his ice time allotment became a growing source of tension within the team.

But if you buy the theory that Shanahan was merely playing hurt for most of last season and now has the benefit of fresh legs, there is a chance the Rangers may have passed up on bringing back a charismatic Hall of Fame-caliber player for relatively little. That’s all conjecture, mind you. And it’s all said in the afterglow of Shanahan scoring one 5-on-3  goal. Maybe we should wait for one of those back-to-back games when Shanahan might look every bit his 40 years before deciding whether it was the right or wrong move.

As for the current Rangers, it sounds like Aaron Voros and Dan Fritsche will play tonight at the expense of Lauri Korpikoski and Petr Prucha, but we’ll confirm later from the skate…
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Great story in the New York Times today by Katie Thomas “about the death of amateur hockey player Don Sanderson and the fighting debate it has helped fuel”:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/20/sports/hockey/20hockey.html?_r=1&ref=hockey. Regardless of which side of the issue you fall on—I admit, I go back and forth—it’s a heartbreaking story.
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On a much lighter note, the boys at the Faceoff blog are channeling the spirit of Inauguration Day with this important question: “Which athlete would make the best President?”:http://faceoff.lohudblogs.com/2009/01/20/question-44-what-athlete-would-make-the-best-president/

Too bad Colton Orr is Canadian. He’d have been a lock in my book.

If there’s been one possible silver lining to the Rangers’ play of late, it is the fact that Tom Renney has managed to keep the same general lines together for several weeks.

Or maybe it’s “had.” Because after yesterday’s listless showing in Pittsburgh, it’s easy to envision Renney jumbling his combinations again in hopes of finding a spark—something the coach even got a headstart on yesterday when he flip-flopped Nigel Dawes and Ryan Callahan.

So here’s the question: if it was frustrating earlier this season to see Renney switch lines just for the sake of change, would it now be equally misguided to keep those lines intact just for the sake of consistency?

Granted, this is only a small part of the equation. If the Rangers were ineffective yesterday, it was not because of who was who, but because of a whole host of other potential factors: that the Penguins were smarting after three-straight losses to the Rangers; that the Rangers were tired and perhaps a shade self-satisfied with their first four games of their road trip; that the team has consistently been uninspired in afternoon games this year (late night with the Dads on Saturday, eh?)

Either way, we should know more today.
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Some great lines by my counterparts in the papers today.

First there is this dead-on call by Larry Brooks:

Somehow, the Rangers almost always look far worse in losing than they appear impressive in winning.

And then there’s Mike Obernauer in the News referencing the AFC Championship game also in Pittsburgh yesterday:

The Igloo Sunday afternoon was just a building full of people whose heads were elsewhere. So in that sense, the Rangers were just joining the crowd.

Along the same lines, Andrew Gross portrays a team that was already out the door.

The sellout crowd waited until under five minutes remained to chant “Go home, Rangers.” But the visitors had started the game as if that was all they wanted to do.

Update, 12:21 p.m.: Sure enough, Tom Renney is shaking things up, although the coach was quick to caution nothing was in stone for tomorrow against the Ducks. Among the highlights: the return of Dan Fritsche to the lineup after 20 games, as well as Aaron Voros.

In this scenario, though, Lauri Korpikoski and Petr Prucha would be scratches. If that is the case, can’t say I see it. Neither player was stellar in Pittsburgh, but no one was.

The “full lines”:http://njmg.typepad.com/rangersblog/2009/01/new-lines.html:

Markus Naslund-Scott Gomez-Ryan Callahan
Nigel Dawes-Chris Drury-Dan Fritsche
Aaron Voros-Brandon Dubinsky-Nikolai Zherdev
Fredrik Sjostrom-Blair Betts-Colton Orr

Update, 12:48 p.m.: According to Renney, the new lines were in part a function of needing to get Voros and Fritsche some practice time at forward since they had spent the past few weeks practicing as spare defensemen.

Check out back here after tomorrow’s morning to see if the two are in or not.

More later…

My lasting memory of my last trip to Pittsburgh will be in the aftermath of the Rangers’ Game 5 loss to the Penguins in last spring’s Eastern Conference Semifinals. We were waiting in the cramped visitors’ locker room for Jaromir Jagr to emerge, knowing full well he likely played his last game in a Rangers uniform.

Once the Rangers captain came out after showering and shaving off his questionable postseason facial hair, a mob of media descended around his locker. Jagr was appropriately vague, even non-committal, and as we learned later, it may be because at that point, he still didn’t know what lay before him.

Some nine months later, the Rangers have been reconstructed without Jagr, and the debate rages on about whether they are a better team than they were a year ago. From a record standpoint, it’s no contest, especially after Friday’s overtime win in Chicago pushed the Rangers to 27-15-4. But most observers would say that’s also a reflection of a diluted Eastern Conference, with no team other than the Bruins truly distinguishing itself.

The best example of the Conference’s inconsistency can be found in the Rangers’ opponent today. The Penguins have two of the best players in the game, a maturing but still above-average goaltender, and can still point to their appearance in last year’s Cup finals as a learning experience. But they also woke up this morning on the outside of the playoff picture, and have fallen to the Rangers in all three meetings so far this season.

But all three of those games were at the Garden, while this afternoon the scene shifts back to Mellon Arena, where the team dropped all three games in last spring’s playoffs. If ever there was a chance for the Penguins to snap back to life, it could be today, even if Sidney Crosby is questionable with a knee injury (don’t forget, the team did just fine without the star for a spell last season).

So stay tuned.

Some note:

If I didn’t see it, I wouldn’t have believed a team could overcome so many questionable penalties—leading to five Chicago 5-on-3s!—  to prevail as the Rangers did last night in Chicago.

Kudos to them for maintaining their composure when it would have been very easy to unravel against the Blackhawks. And yet kudos also go to Tom Renney for showing some needed fire when the calls started to pile up.

I asked a couple of players yesterday if there’s any added pressure playing two games in front of their fathers this weekend. I know that might sound ridiculous. These are millionaire athletes who play in packed arenas. Some have played in Stanley Cup Finals and Olympics.

But dads are different, trust me. I’ve never played in a packed arena (although I’ve blogged in a packed arena— that’s pressure), but I can remember countless games as a young player when my father would be in the same corner of the rink, cupping his hands around his mouth and imploring me to “Skate!” Later, after reviewing my play on the car ride home, we’d retreat to the kitchen, where Dad would diagram plays on a napkin or a newspaper.

It didn’t matter if I scored two goals or was on the ice for four against. Until my father gave his assessment, I didn’t really know how well or poorly I played (the same goes for newspaper stories, by the way. If my dad likes my work, I’ve done my job. If he doesn’t, well, at least he doesn’t diagram my mistakes on napkins anymore).

But again, that’s just me. As for the Rangers, they have plenty else to worry about. Although they’ve won two straight, their last win over the hapless Islanders was harldy in convincing fashion. And now they’re facing a Chicago team that is more mature and more cohesive than when they last saw them way back on Oct. 10.

All of this serves as an intriguing backdrop for Dads’ Weekend. Maybe there isn’t any added pressure with their fathers around. But you’d have to think the weekend will be a lot more enjoyable if the team can pick up some points along the way.