We can go as far as to pinpoint the precise moment when perhaps (though hopefully not) the fortunes shifted dramatically in the Rangers season: The start of the third period in Pittsburgh last Wednesday. Going into that period, the Rangers and Penguins were tied 1-1 even though the Blueshirts had clearly been the better team up to that point. After the teams traded goals in the first period and New York was essentially dominating Pittsburgh in the second, I remember thinking ‘this is the type of game the Rangers of seasons past would typically lose. Let’s see what happens here because this could be telling.’ The team was coming off impressive back-to-back home victories and seemed to have momentum in its favor. It was playing tough, defensive hockey and more importantly seemed well-disciplined, staying away from silly mistakes such as turnovers and cheap penalties. I had every reason to believe this season would be different from others the past decade and a half. Or so I thought.

Then that third period happened and the team fell apart, playing perhaps its worst 20 minutes this season. Pittsburgh scored three times in the first 10 minutes and the rout was on. The five goals scored against New York in that period were the most in any period so far this season. And still, the Rangers outshot the Penguins in the game, 34-33. Rangers players were as baffled as anybody. “I just played terrible, I can’t explain it,” said Henrik Lundqvist. Paul Mara also called the experience “unexplainable.”

Tom Renney and the coaching staff deserve credit for getting the team to forget the experience and focus on the next game, at Boston on Saturday afternoon. The Rangers played much better, very well even, but still lost, 1-0, thanks largely to an otherworldly goaltending performance by Bruins rookie Tuukka Rask. “We played the best team in the Eastern Conference right to the letter,” Renney said afterwards. And he was right, of course. But as nice as those type of performances are, they become exercises in frustration if the team doesn’t come away with any points. Unfortunately, these are the types of games mediocre teams (ones that go one and done in the playoffs) lose. They’re also the type of losses that leave fans with the impression these are the same ol’ Rangers after all: good on paper, solid for the most part and sometimes even capable of impressive victories. But ultimately lacking any kind of unified core that can get the team back to the Stanley Cup.

Having said all that, it would obviously be premature (not to mention highly irrational) to write off the Rangers season at this point. There are 30 games left to play (31 to be precise) and the team is well placed for the Eastern Conference playoffs. Plus we have Adam Graves night tomorrow; if that doesn’t get the team fired up, nothing will. It’s not unreasonable to expect the event to propel the team on a more definitive momentum-changing streak–a true “turning point” if you will (with a more positive outcome than what is outlined here). Hopefully, that’s what happens. But these are the Rangers, after all. Until somebody like Mark Messier comes along (and unless he’s flanked by Adam Graves and Brian Leetch), “hope” is something better left abandoned. See you tomorrow night.

• It did not commit any penalties at all in the Buffalo game or in the first period of the Ottawa game
• The Rangers defense did not give up any goals in the Ottawa game or in the final 28 minutes and 34 seconds of the Buffalo game (including five minutes of overtime). That’s a stretch of 88:34 going into Tuesday night’s game at Nassau.

What do these two points tell us? They tell us this team played with discipline. And that, in turn, tells us they are well-coached.

Say what you will about Renney’s four year (and counting) reign behind the bench at Madison Square Garden, he has always preached defense and discipline as vital parts of any winning team’s makeup. If his team is true to that, he has to be doing something right as a coach.

Granted, “something right” is not enough to guarantee a coach’s success in this town. And we have plenty to fault him on scouting and player development, a system that in four years has produced few bonafide stars (that list starts and ends with Henrik Lundqvist, pretty much). And of course this team has at times also failed at the very principles Renney has said to preach, such as in the embarrassing 5-4 loss to Washington and more recent 6-3 drubbing at home to the Canadiens. But this weekend, at least, it took a step in the right direction.

Finally, consider just how short this team is on real talent: no Jaromir Jagr, no Sean Avery, a first line offense that has a combined age of 96 and a nucleus of largely untested players. Sorry folks, but this is not a team you can realistically expect to challenge for the Eastern Conference top seed. If they make the playoffs as one of the top four teams I’d consider it quite an achievement. If they do so by incorporating Renney’s system and demonstrating that it is jelling into a cohesive unit that gives us reason to hope for the future, then the coaching staff will deserve even more credit. We’re not there yet, and there is a lot that can still go wrong, but firing Renney should be the last thing on anybody’s mind after this weekend.

9:00 PM – Looks like the Rangers re-signed Steve Valiquette, so he’ll continue to be Henrik Lundqvist’s backup. That’s one I can agree with. I’ll be back later with any further news, as well as some analysis of this…interesting day.

8:20 PM – Sam Weinman, beat writer from The Journal News, just posted on his blog that the Rangers were not done tonight and that other moves could be on the way.

7:45 PM – So let me get this straight…this team signed BOTH Redden and Rozsival, and also signed Rissmiller and Voros.

I don’t get it. Either they’ve lost their mind, OR, they’re going to pull off a move. Maybe they package a guy like Fedor Tyutin, who I believe will be overpaid under the extension they gave him, with a Nigel Dawes or a Petr Prucha or a Ryan Callahan, as well as a prospect or a pick for a better forward.

I don’t know. Where does this leave them as far as Jaromir Jagr and Mats Sundin are concerned?

I’m confused.

7:38 PM – Now, according to TSN’s Bob Mckenzie, the Rangers have also signed Wade Redden to a contract worth an average of $6.5 million per season over six years. Wow. More on this later.

7:30 PM – In other news, defenseman Brian Campbell signed with the Chicago Blackhawks, cashing in on a huge eight-year contract worth just over $7 million per season. Let’s just have a collective sigh of relief that the Rangers wisely declined to pursue this guy.

Meanwhile, Mats Sundin, who the Rangers still have eyes for apparently, has been offered a two-year, $20 million contract by the Vancouver Canucks, but don’t expect the Sundin saga to be resolved today. I wouldn’t be surprised if it took a week, maybe more, for Sundin to make his decision.

Never say never, though.

The Devils signed 35-year-old Brian Rolston to a four-year, $20 million contract, but they also re-signed Jay Pandalfo, as well as others, and brought back Bobby Holik for one season at $2.5 million.

7:00 PM – Well, the day isn’t done yet, but so far the Rangers have made three moves. For the record, I’m not particularly pleased with any of them.

The most notable move the Rangers have made so far was re-signing their own defenseman, Michal Rozsival, to a four-year, $20 million dollar contract, which averages out to a cap hit of $5 million per year.

I’ve said before that Rozsival is a decent defenseman, but not a top pairing defenseman and I really don’t think he was worthy of $5 million per season. I understand that a lot of guys are getting overpaid, but that just seems like a million dollars to much for a guy who, as this team has learned, is not the answer in terms of running a power play. Maybe if Jagr leaves it might have an effect on Rozsival’s game, I don’t know. More on him later.

The Rangers also signed two bruising wingers prior to the Rozsival signing, as they picked up Aaron Voros and then later Patrick Rissmiller.

Voros is a 26-year-old coming off his rookie year with the Minnesota Wild, where he was an early season call-up who was a scratch down the stretch. The terms of the contract appear to point to a three-year deal, with Voros earning $1 million per year.

Rissmiller spent two full seasons, and parts of two others, with the San Jose Sharks. The 29-year-old Massachusetts native has scored 18 goals and 45 points in 180 NHL games. The team also officially announced the signing of Swedish agitator Andreas Jämtin.

No terms are yet available for either Rissmiller or Jämtin.

I’ll have more as it happens.

Then comes this article, from the Post’s Larry Brooks, on just that topic.

Brooks claims that, ideally, the Rangers would love nothing more than to retain Jaromir Jagr and pair him with Toronto captain Mats Sundinas the team’s top offensive duo, with Chris Drury moving over to the wing on Scotty Gomez’s line. Brooks also mentions that the team would like to retain the services of Sean Avery and Michal Rozsival.

This line of thinking is pretty close to what I’d like to see this team do myself, actually. Signing Jagr and Sundin to one, or even two, year deals worth around $5 million each would be a much smarter idea than overpaying a guy like Marian Hossa for the next seven years. With Sundin and Jagr in the lineup, the Rangers would be able to stay competitive for the next season or two, while continuing to groom young players.

If the Rangers could manage to sign both Jagr and Sundin, even to two-year deals, then by the time their contracts expired, the Rangers would be a deep team full of quality young players and with enough cap room to sign a franchise player, like Ilya Kovalchuk, for example, who will be an unrestricted free agent after the 2009-10 season. The Rangers would still have veterans like Drury, Gomez, Henrik Lundqvist and Blair Betts to go with a score of young players, like Brandon Dubinsky, Nigel Dawes, Dan Girardi, Ryan Callahan, Marc Staal, Bobby Sanguinetti, Mike Sauer, Artem Anisimov, Alexei Cherepanov and others, who have already either had some NHL experience at that point or are would be ready to step in.

Even if Sundin goes elsewhere, I’d stick with essentially the same plan. Signing Hossa won’t make the Rangers a contender, and he isn’t a franchise player. Hossa is a great, great player, but he’s more of a compliment than a main piece. Thanks to the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Rangers won’t have the opportunity to highly overpay for a player like Ryan Malone, after the former Penguin signed with the Lightning yesterday, but the Rangers must be sure to avoid similar temptation from the likes of Hossa and many of the other top free agents available this summer.

I’d much rather see the team go after a cheaper player like Michael Ryder. Give Ryder three years at $3 million per season and maybe he goes back to scoring 30 goals again. It’s a better risk than paying Hossa $8 million.

If there is one free agent from the top crop this season that I wouldn’t mind seeing in Broadway Blue next season, it’s Wade Redden. I’ve never been a big fan of Rozsival, and if teams are going to offer him $5 million (or even more), I’d rather pay a little more for a guy like Redden. His last couple of seasons in Ottawa weren’t great, but I believe he’s still got it. He’s only 31. I’d give him a 5 year deal at $5.5 million per, though I don’t know if I would go past that.

Truth be told, what I’d really love is to see the Rangers send a second or third round pick and a player to Anaheim for former Ranger Mathieu Schneider. Due to salary cap constraints, the Ducks are likely to move Schneider, who can still put up points from the blueline despite his age. Yeah, he’s 39, but he only has a year left on his deal, and he wasn’t bad last season. He’s still a solid offensive defenseman, and he could hold the fort until Sanguinetti is ready for duty.

I must take umbrage with Brooks’ claim that the Rangers want to keep Avery, however. Granted, I’m not an “insider,” but from what has been made public, nothing that the Rangers have done so far shows me that they want to retain the Annoying One’s services. Personally, I think they should, as long as he earns no more than $3.25 million per season. That figure is overpayment as it is, but anything more would be too much.

Obviously, we’ll see what happens on Tuesday, but I’ll be hoping that the Rangers resist temptation and go for the smart, affordable personnel.

«FULL STORY»

With the Rangers coming through for two goals in the third, the Blueshirts take home ice back for a 1-0 lead in the series.

And this was a Devil Fans nightmare. Their ‘favorites’ like Scott Gomez and Sean Avery performed and Marty Brodeur looked like a rookie out there [or at least like Mike Dunham] in the third when he tried to handle pucks that should have been just covered up.

Good job by the young Rangers like Callahan and Brandon Dubinsky who didn’t melt under the pressure and good work from Brandan Shanahan scoring the first goal.

The star of the night was Henrik Lundqvist who outplayed Brodeur and could have had a shutout if Marty Straka’s stick didn’t break causing a 5-4 powerplay to be a 5-3 since the Rangers couldn’t clear the puck and Straka couldn’t do too much.

But that’s water under the bridge, because the Callahan and Avery goals were the difference.

And what leadership from Chris Drury at the end of the game, giving the puck to Nigel Dawes for the empty netter so he can get his first goal.

All in all, a nice win.  

For the Rangers, the key is to get to the Devils early so they can get a lead and sit on it. Although they can come back from few goals down as proven on Friday, it will be tougher in the playoffs.

That said, the Devils need to hit Henrik Lundqvist as well and do it early. If not this could be a quick series.

Also this may come down to penalties, because one mistake may turn this series.

More later…. 

If you were at the game or watched it at home, you saw the Rangers dominate on shots, but also watched as the Ducks capitalized on Blueshirt mistakes.

Here’s the problem: The Rangers play a different game at home compared to on the road. That said, the Blueshirts make too many mistakes at home, and hope that Henrik Lundqvist can save them.

Unfortunately, he can’t.

As good as Lundqvist has been, the Rangers still can’t leave their goalie naked out there for odd man rushes. They limit those on the road, but get out of the gameplan at the Garden. The result comes a loss for the Blueshirts, a frustrated crowd and an angry Tom Renney, who is not at fault here.

Until the team cuts down on their mistakes at the Garden expect more of this, because the Rangers can’t go toe to toe with the high scoring teams.

Just my throughts on the train. I will have the NYSD game story up later.

Here are the results:

Henrik Lundqvist: First went with the Pats 24-15, but then changed it to Giants 32-24

Jason Strudwick: 24-14 Pats

Fedor Tyutin: Giants 24-21

Stephen Valiquette: Giants 24-14

Dan Girardi: Giants 30-21

Scott Gomez: Giants 28-17

Tom Renney: Giants 26-23

 

Tom Renney said Valiquette plays for scheduling purposes, and Henrik Lundqvist will be in Jersey and Montreal.

But tonight the Rangers play the Flyers in a game that hopefully gets the competitive juices flowing as time is ticking away.

“Anything can help,” Renney said. “I would like to think it doesn’t matter, but these are four point games and Philadelphia is playing very well and we have to have the passion to play”

For the lines, Renney is changing the lines once again with Marty Straka moving back with Scott Gomez and Jarmomir Jagr. Sean Avery goes back with his buddy Brendan Shanahan with Brandon Dubinsky centering and Chris Drury will center Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha.

That’s all for now.

And for some Giants news check out NYGMen.com, which I am running for the week.