Oy. The Dark Ranger is getting tired of this.
Maybe New York Rangers Coach Tom Renney will have something to teach his professional hockey players this afternoon, after the Blueshirts lost to the Washington Capital 5-4 in overtime last evening. "We didn't show a lot of poise and we didn't show a lot of maturity," said Renney, whose team blew a 2-0, first-period lead and is 1-3-1 in the last five and 4-5-2 in the last 11. "We got the lead, and we got comfortable. "
Way to go coach! Full game recap here. Fellow "questioning our coach" bloggers here, here, here.
Last night reminded me of our first meeting with Atlanta this season -- a display of horrible leadership (coach and players) and team effort. The brain-dead Rangers have dropped four of the last five games, the one win against New Jersey now feels more of a fluke than a win. The opening first period welcomed two unexpected Rangers goals by Scotty Gomez and Martin Straka holding the lead at 2-0, but two minutes later answered by the Capital's Joe Motzko scoring, ended the period 2-1.
The first intermission was a time of answering the breakdowns in the first period, the lack of cross-checking and maintaining lines, a reflection of playing smart hockey -- a good coach makes the team hopeful, smart and decisive. Well f**k me!
The second period brought forward a wave of Washington Capitals, outshooting the Rangers 10-0, the antithesis of forward motion and our defensive system. The Blueshirts looked disorganized, barely focused and slow, until Washington rookie Joe Motzko scored again - his first two goals of the entire season (a rookie playing for the worst team in the NHL scoring on the best goalkeeper in the league). Now we looked just plain bad. Hhhmm. The last period, the Big "O"vechkin scored, followed by another unexpected wave of New York Ranger offense -- Straka scoring his second goal, Brendan Shanahan lighting it up to tie the game 4-4 and heading into overtime. Point taken.....then.....
...the trip on 'bad ice'.
With only a minute and a half left in overtime, heading toward the shootout (Go Henrik!) Ranger's Chris Drury sent a beautiful cross-ice pass in the Capital's zone to Brendan Shanahan. Shanny's skate buckled underneath him, he tripped and fell leaving the puck wide open "alone and looking for love in all the wrong places." Capitals Defense saw the turnover opportunity and proceeded to two-on-one Henrik Lundquist letting in the winning goal by Capital's Mike Green.
"I'm not sure if I'm disturbed or perturbed. We just weren't very smart," Rangers coach Tom Renney said. "I thought we handled the puck poorly, we managed it poorly, we had disjointed line changes, we had defencemen caught out for two-minute shifts because we couldn't get out of our own end."
So Rangers fans, aside from the "Mystery of the Disappearing Power Play Unit", I leave one more question to ponder after another hideous loss, "Where was Tom Renney in all of this?"
tdr
1) Did Jagr play? Geez he was invisable last night. You'd think the rangers would be acustomed to bad ice by now. Verizon is probably as bad(and worse at times) as MSG.
ReplyDelete2) Should the Renney watch re-commence?
The Blueshirts are currently in CODE_RED play. I should create a Renney-code for the fun of it.
ReplyDeleteJagr continues to disappoint on GOOD/BAD ice and especially in my damn fantasy team.
Maybe Tom was out taking in the sights. The Smithsonian is always a good stop ...
ReplyDeleteit's time for a shake up. Either Drury goes on the first line with Jagr, or Jagr is demoted to the third line leaving Straka - Drury - Callahan or something like that up front. I would equally take Prucha instead of Callahan. This is just getting silly with Jagr's disinterest.
ReplyDeletescotty & ak...your comments inspired me to create the "Tom Renney Danger Meter" on how close he is to losing his job. imagine how jagr on the 3rd line would motivate his level of play.
ReplyDelete