NEW YORK – Despite all the success the New York Rangers had in the 2011-12 NHL season, and there were many bright spots, the season ended in bitter disappointment for the club and fans, again.
The post season was a tight rope walk for the Rangers with the first two series pushed to seven games by opponents who played with passion.
Asked if there were any words to describe the feeling of losing the series Rangers head coach John Tortorella said there weren’t any that were adequate.
“ No. I feel bad for the club. You know how I feel about the team. And I thought they played with balls tonight. I didn’t think — going into it, I felt really comfortable with the mindset of the club, and I thought they displayed themselves. After a little bit of a struggle, we gathered ourselves and I thought we played two really good periods. I thought it was going to end in overtime. I thought it was going to be us,” Tortorella said.
After the series loss to New Jersey Tortorella was unwilling to go through a list of his players from whom he did or did not get enough quality play.
Regardless of efforts he seemed genuinely pleased with the team effort after yet another dreadful opening period.
“We had some chances. Again, I thought we were the better team. I thought the third period we controlled it territorially,” Tortorella related. “And Ritchie has a great chance in the power play. He makes a good save there. But, again, you could feel it on our bench. We felt very comfortable as we played those last two periods. But they make a big play at the end.”
Whatever else is said of Tortorella he is a defender of his team.
“It’s more of even — I just — I love our jam. I love our balls. I really like what we have here. I don’t think it will be the same. There are always changes. But what they have — what our group has developed in their identity, their mindset, I think showed tonight,” Tortorella said of his Rangers team.
“Again, we don’t get it done, but I just like the way they handle themselves. As I said this morning, I thought we struggled a little bit early in this series with our swagger. I think we got that back. Got kicked a little bit early in this game here. But we got our swagger back, and I really thought we were coming. But, again, we don’t score the big goal and they score one.”
But for Tortorella and the Rangers organization this needs to be a learning experience within the laboratory of the NHL schedule and the post season. And the lessons need to be hard and the outcomes harder.
“Well, we played 20 playoff games. We played a couple of Game 7s. We’ve been in situations where we’ve had to scramble to win a series. Me personally, I have found — I thought there were some really good things with some players and how they handle themselves, and I think there were some struggles with other ones. And these are the evaluations you go through as you gain experience,” Tortorella said of the entire experience of learning and lessons for the future.
“We’re still a young club. And we still have quite a bit to learn as far as the desperation, when you get to this third round. I just don’t want us to — and you hear it so much, and I won’t accept it. You know, you won a couple of rounds. You got into the third round. That isn’t good enough. We still have to find a way to win another round and get there,” he said of the conference finals loss.
“I just don’t want this organization to sit still and say, because, prior, it was barely getting into the Playoffs, losing in the first round, maybe getting to the second round,” Tortorella said. “We have to change our mindset to continue trying to be the best and learn that there’s a lot more hockey to play after you go through a couple.”
“You can’t be tired. You can’t be tired here, and I don’t think we were.”
And perhaps the comment Tortorella made that should give Rangers fans some hope was his acknowledgement that some players did not handle themselves well in the post season. That should translate into changes in the roster that result from the lessons learned.
“Well, some of them just handle themselves the way they did through the experience. Again, it wasn’t just five games. It wasn’t, I’m not sure what the other years were at least since I’ve been here. We’ve played a lot of playoff hockey. There were a lot of momentum swings and surges, and the best thing is that you need to experience those. We didn’t finish the way we wanted to,” Tortorella said.
“But some guys handled them very well. Some guys didn’t. I’ll be honest with you, some guys didn’t. And those are the things we have to talk about as an organization if we’re going to continue to try to get better,” Tortorella said.
That last comment should send a message of expectation to fans and change of address for some players.
Tortorella is a hard-nosed, no nonsense head coach who expects full effort from his roster. For the 2011-12 post season he did not get that full effort from more than several players. That’s not good enough for Tortorella, the Rangers organization or the Rangers fan base.
The passion shown by Ottawa and Washington in the first two rounds challenged the Rangers but their overall talent overwhelmed that passion. But the Rangers were no match for the passion and talent of New Jersey.
Up next is a discussion of the positives for the 2011-2012 season for the New York Rangers.
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