NEW YORK – The first nine games for the Rangers have been at times frustrating and at others impressive to watch. Realizing that they had to be on the road for the first seven games due to the MSG renovation may have contributed a little to this sluggishness. The games in Europe were tight and they managed to gut their way to get at least 2 points out of them, but after a week off, they went to Long Island and looked at times clearly outmatched as they lost the first game of their North America part of the trip allowing a hat trick to Islander star John Tavares.
The next stage of the trip took them first to Vancouver where Lundqvist stood on his head and after being outplayed for the first 40 minutes, they woke up and scored 4 times in the third to shut the Canucks out. Two nights later in Calgary, they were again sluggish and managed to squeak out an OT win with a goal with .5 seconds left against the Flames. The thought process going into the Edmonton game was that the 2 points were there for the taking against the young Oilers, but that was not the case as they failed to show up at all and were in fact shut out for the first time this year.
The final game was in Winnipeg, where they haven’t played a game in over 15 years, but was nice to see NHL hockey back there this year. Once again, this was another game that the 2 points was available for the taking and while they did it in the end, it was a struggle and a couple of lucky bounces on Power Plays allowed them to come home with a winning record on the trip of 3-2-2.
At long last came the home opener at the Garden and it started with lots of promise with a great first period as they were flying all over the ice. Unfortunately they had 2 goals disallowed on incidental contact with the goalie calls, one which was correct and the other wasn’t. This deflated them and they were completely outplayed the rest of the game and ended up losing to the Maple Leafs. Could it have been the long trip, jet lag, or just the lack of effort which led to the bad 40 minutes of play?
Who knows, but there are certain things that were noticed over these first 8 games that could be the cause of concern for the team going forward. First, the Power Play has for the most part been abysmal, not shooting enough and the constant passing of the puck waiting for the perfect shot which usually never comes.
The feeling amongst the fans is that they may as well decline the penalty when it’s called. Secondly, Tortorella is juggling the lines way too much during games, not allowing any type of chemistry to form between players such as Gaborik and Richards and rumor has it that Tortorella is putting Christensen on the first line, replacing Richards as center. Third, it seems that they simply haven’t driven to the net enough offensively and always want to dump and chase which doesn’t allow for any sustained pressure in the other teams zone. Also, there has been no cycling of the puck as well which means that there seems to be no plays set up in order to try to score any goals.
Those two things as well as the lack of shots on goal most nights, leads to having to try to win every game 1-0, 2-1 or 3-2 instead of beating teams more comfortably. Tortorella should let the reins off the offense and allow them to create instead of always coming back to play defense. The defense corps is young and solid despite the fact that Staal is still out of the lineup although Del Zotto still scares people with his sometimes awful mistakes out there. Some of the forwards need to step it up as well since it seems so far that the team has looked offensively challenged, sitting near the bottom of the league in goals for.
They need to improve quickly or this could turn into a long season. The major bright spot on the team so far has been the goaltending of Lundqvist and Biron as they give the team a chance to win each game.
Bottom line is that the talent is there but it needs to come together as one and the coaching staff needs to all get on the same page as the players.
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