Canucks "Sheit-Out" The Rangers 3-0

We lost again.

The New York Rangers lost their second in a row on their Canadian road game swing this week, last night to the Vancouver Canucks. My only comment is that Vancouver's shutout is due more to the Blueshirt's inability to perform than to Vancouver goalkeeper Roberto Luongo's 'press-declared' brilliant performance. Official recap here (so that I don't have to comment on the stats).

The Blueshirts have reached a pivotal place in the season as we are officially halfway through and still searching for some level of team chemistry... this Blueshirt performance was clearly one of the most physical games all season, but to no avail. As we look ahead to the second half leading into playoff consideration, we keep looking back to the 'same old story' in how the Rangers dominated and controlled the puck through most of the first and second periods, intertwined with bad referee calls (strange (non)penalty against Colton Orr), brilliant Ranger scoring opportunities that 1. hit the post or 2. open net, unable to finish/follow-through and an expected loss of focus that creates turnovers that lead to opponent goals. Though, our penalty killing unit is probably our greatest consistent asset thus far, we have recently experienced our greatest asset, Goalkeeper King Lundqvist, become uneven in the latter stretch of this half. Now we are once again faced with the same issues that plagued us in the beginning of the season.

Tom Renney, Jaromir Jagr, Chris Drury and even Stephen Valiquette were all interviewed after the game and all quoted with some form of "We played great hockey. We wouldn't do anything differently. (or better yet) It just didn't go our way."

Let's be real here. Don't change anything? How many times must be lose and self-proclaim how great we played? This was not the game I watched. The Rangers rose to the physical challenge in the first period against Vancouver and as hopeful as I get watching any game this season, I was still anticipating the breakdown and the holes to appear. They did. This is what we have come to expect from our Rangers, and despite what critics in the press, expert bloggers are declaring "just wait..." and with most mid-level teams in the Eastern Conference rankings all 2-5 points apart from each other, I am not sure that the New York Rangers will make the playoffs.

There I said it. The playoffs may be a reach this season, given the strength of the Eastern Conference. Win one, lose two will not make us eligible. The bigger picture would suggest that something radical needs to happen come trade time and will there be any room in salary cap or will any other franchise even want those that we want to dump?

Perhaps Slats is open to suggestions. What do you think?

tdr