Rangers: The Blue Seats

Tortorella: Rangers 'loose' heading into make-or-break games

April 08, 2010 , ι By JAY GREENBERG

Ryan Callahan, Chris Drury, Erik Christensen, Jody Shelley missed practice today, but Coach John Tortorella said all would play tomorrow night as the Rangers begin the home-and-home with Philadelphia... Read on

Ryan Callahan, Chris Drury, Erik Christensen, Jody Shelley missed practice today, but Coach John Tortorella said all would play tomorrow night as the Rangers begin the home-and-home with Philadelphia that will determine their eligibility for a fifth consecutive post-season berth.
	 
If the Rangers win both games, one of them in regulation, they qualify for the playoffs. One Rangers point tonight, while it would put the Flyers in, would still keep the Rangers alive against Boston for the final spot, but the Bruins have an extra game over the weekend, leaving probability on their side.
	 
So likely this is it for a Ranger team that has needed a 6-1-1 surge to produce this opportunity that Tortorella said they should enjoy.
	 
"They have been loose and I use that term loosely I guess," he said. "They have stayed within themselves, haven't been uptight about it and there's no sense to being uptight even now.
	 
"As you take the next step, you don’t change the outlook, you just go out and play. There's no big picture here, I think that changes the mindset of the player and we need to not change that mindset.
	 
"It's an opportunity, we should have some fun with it because they deserve it. It's been a long seasons of ups and down, but we're still there."
	 
The Flyers, who have stopped a freefall with two consecutive wins, one against a surging Detroit team, may get leading goal scorer Jeff Carter (broken foot) back tomorrow night. He skated today and will make a decision at the morning skate.

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Rangers' Callahan could play Wednesday; Avery OK

March 23, 2010 , ι By JAY GREENBERG

Ryan Callahan, who suffered an unspecified injury to his right leg during a board collision with Zdeno Chara in Sunday's 2-1 loss in Boston, did not practice with the Rangers on Tuesday but hopes to... Read on

Ryan Callahan, who suffered an unspecified injury to his right leg during a board collision with Zdeno Chara in Sunday's 2-1 loss in Boston, did not practice with the Rangers on Tuesday but hopes to play Wednesday night against the Islanders at Madison Square Garden.
	 
"It feels a lot better today than it did yesterday," said Callahan, one of the team's better forwards and perhaps the most consistent in terms of effort. "Felt great on the bike and the swelling's not too bad.
	 
"Riding the bike is a lot different than cutting and turning so we'll see. (I'll) get on the ice and see how it feels and I'll do that in the morning."
	 
Sean Avery, who missed Monday's practice after blocking a shot, participated in full drills is good to go.
	 
The Rangers,
	 who have fallen five points and two places out of playoff spot with 10 games remaining, play two games in two nights against their bitter local rivals. They open a six-game trip Thursday against the Devils.

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Rangers sign defenseman Baldwin

March 22, 2010 , ι POST STAFF REPORT

The Rangers announced the signing of defenseman Lee Baldwin today. Baldwin, 21, just completed his freshman year at the University of Alaska Anchorage, where he scored one goal and nine assists with... Read on

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Longtime Rangers publicist Halligan dies

January 20, 2010 , ι POST STAFF REPORT

John Halligan, a Rangers publicist and historian for 40 years, died Wednesday morning. He was 68. “John Halligan was an institution with the Rangers, and is as much a part of the tradition and... Read on

John Halligan, a Rangers publicist and historian for 40 years, died Wednesday morning. He was 68.
	 
“John Halligan was an institution with the Rangers, and is as much a part of the tradition and history as any player who has worn the sweater,” Rangers GM Glen Sather said. "His tremendous loyalty and love for the organization and the game of hockey will be greatly missed.”
	 
Halligan joined the Rangers in 1963 after graduating from Fordham. He moved on to the NHL in 1983 before returning to the Blueshirts in 1986.
	 
He was given the Lester Patrick Award in 2007 for service to hockey in the United States.
	 
"I was just a rookie when I got to meet John Halligan," former Rangers captain Brian Leetch
	 told NHL.com. "When John asked me to do something, he always had a reference to a player who had been in that situation before. He would always guide you in the right direction."
	 
Halligan is survived by his wife Janet.

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Rangers recall goalie Johnson

January 05, 2010 , ι From the Rangers

The Rangers have called up goaltender Chad Johnson from the Hartford Wolf Pack of the American Hockey League (AHL), and goaltender Matt Zaba has been assigned to Hartford.Johnson, 23, won back-to... Read on

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Rangers coach: Attitude 'stinks around here'

December 18, 2009 , ι By DAN MARTIN

John Tortorella benched a pair of Rangers veterans last night, and don’t expect them to be the last moves he makes. Today, the coach blasted the “entitlement” that surrounded the team.“There’s gonna... Read on

John Tortorella benched a pair of Rangers veterans last night, and don’t expect them to be the last moves he makes. Today, the coach blasted the “entitlement” that surrounded the team.
	 
“There’s gonna be no entitlement around here,” Tortorella said. “And I think that’s what kind of stinks… around here.”
	 
He put just about everyone on notice, especially “underachieving veterans.”
	 
“To me it just doesn’t matter how long you’ve played, how much money you make, what draft pick you were,” Tortorella said after a short practice. “We need to shift a little bit and we’re going to.”
	 
That means getting younger.
	 
“I’m not trying to threaten,” said Tortorella,
	 who sat Wade Redden and Ales Kotalik last night in
	 the 5-2 win over the Islanders at the Coliseum after an uninspired effort on Wednesday at the Garden against the Isles. “We have tried to instill confidence in some of our veteran guys that need to take a huge part of this hockey club. I have not seen them grab a hold of it. So we’ll continue to work with them. We’re not gonna kick ‘em around. To me this isn’t a kicking, this is just an assessment of play… but we’re gonna make decisions on our lineup based on how person is playing, not on who he is, who he thinks he is, how much he makes and all that garbage.”
	 
The final straw was
	 the 2-1 loss to the Islanders on Wednesday.
	 
“It sticks in my craw,” Tortorella said. “That was disrespectful to the organization. That’s where [GM] Glen [Sather] and I have had some conversations since then. Enough is enough with the entitlement and keeping on giving people ice time. And so the room has to handle it and then the room becomes better, I think. If it doesn’t we have the wrong locker room.”

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Rangers demote Gilroy to AHL

December 10, 2009 , ι POST STAFF REPORT

In a somewhat surprising move, the Rangers sent D Matt Gilroy down to Hartford today and decided to keep D Ilkka Heikkinen on the team. The move was made necessary with D Wade Redden returning from a... Read on

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3 Rangers prospects invited to U.S. junior camp

December 02, 2009 , ι POST STAFF REPORT

Rangers prospects Ryan Bourque, Chris Kreider and Derek Stepan were selected to USA Hockey’s preliminary roster for the 2010 U.S. National Junior Team. The forwards will participate in a 29-player,... Read on

Rangers prospects Ryan Bourque, Chris Kreider and Derek Stepan were selected to USA Hockey’s preliminary roster for the 2010 U.S. National Junior Team.
	 
The forwards will participate in a 29-player, three-day pre-tournament training camp from Dec. 17-19 in Grand Forks, N.D., to determine USA Hockey’s final roster for the 2010 IIHF World Junior Championships in Saskatchewan, Canada.
	 
Bourque, 18, has skated in 26 games with the Quebec Remparts of the Quebec Major Junior Hockey League (QMJHL) this season, registering 12 goals and 14 assists for 26 points. He was the Rangers' third-round selection, 80th overall, in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.
	 
Kreider, 18, has appeared in 12 games with the Boston College Eagles of the NCAA’s Hockey East, registering four goals and eight points. He was the Rangers' first-round selection, 19th overall, in the 2009 NHL Entry Draft.
	 
Stepan, 19, has skated in 14 games with the University of Wisconsin in the Western Collegiate Hockey Association (WCHA) this season, registering five goals and 10 assists for 15 points. He was the Rangers' second-round selection, 51st overall, in the 2008 NHL Entry Draft.

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Rangers waive backup goalie Valiquette

December 02, 2009 , ι HOWARD KUSSOY

The Rangers have placed backup goaltender Stephen Valiquette on waivers and have claimed seventh-year center Erik Christensen off waivers from Anaheim. Teams have 24 hours to claim Valiquette, who... Read on

The Rangers have placed backup goaltender Stephen Valiquette on waivers and have claimed seventh-year center Erik Christensen off waivers from Anaheim.
	 
Teams have 24 hours to claim Valiquette, who has spent the past four seasons with the Rangers, but has struggled with a 3.74 GAA in six games this season.
	 
Christensen appeared in nine games for the Ducks this season without recording a point, but will receive "an opportunity," as expressed by coach John Tortorella, as Brandon Dubinsky recovers from a broken hand.
	 
The Rangers will call up 23-year-old goaltender Chad Johnson, whom the Rangers received from the Penguins this summer in exchange for a fifth-round pick. Johnson has played 18 games for Hartford (AHL) this season, compiling a 10-6-1 record with three shutouts, a 2.10 goals against average, and a .926 save percentage.
	 
Tortorella also announced an unspecified injury to Donald Brashear.

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Rangers just aren't tough enough

December 01, 2009 , ι BRETT CYRGALIS

So Bobby Sanguinetti has been shipped back to Hartford (AHL) today, making it seem very likely that Wade Redden will be ready to play in Buffalo on Saturday. Although 21-year-old Sanguinetti was... Read on

So Bobby Sanguinetti has been shipped back to Hartford (AHL) today, making it seem very likely that Wade Redden will be ready to play in Buffalo on Saturday.
	 
Although 21-year-old Sanguinetti was unimpressive yet solid in his two-game NHL debut, he does not affect what is the real problem with this team. Whether it’s Redden or Sanguinetti or Corey Potter or Mike Sauer (or any other youngster in Hartford) this Rangers team is still too easy to play against. It’s a simple sentiment, but it’s been abundantly true in the last month and a half.
	 
And you know what’s a dead giveaway how easy it is to show up against the Rangers and play your game?
	 
Last night, as Sam Rosen called the game on TV – a 5-2 loss the Penguins at home – he got overly excited about “great poke checks” by the Rangers defensemen. Now, no offense to Sam, who continues to do a great job, but really? Great poke check! What’s next, This Michal Rozsival poke check will last a lifetime!
	 
This team, for all of their talent, is mediocre. And they will continue to be mediocre unless the mentality changes. They need to stop playing such nice-guy hockey and need to start aggravating their opponents.
	 
One of the great things about hockey, and this has been passed down from generation to generation, is that the gradual annoyance of your opponent eventually shows up on the scoreboard. It’s how a stick to gut here, or a glove to the face there, in the end gives you that one tiny advantage that results in game-changing plays.
	 
And that’s how the Rangers are losing right now: by small mistakes that result in game-changing plays.
	 
It’s really nothing that big, nor is it a philosophical deficiency in the way John Tortorella wants to run this team. He wants them to “Go, go, go.” He wants them all to have “safe is death” tattooed on their hearts. But he also wants them to be defensively responsible. He wants them to control the puck. He wants them to be better down low. All of that can jive. It’s called a complete hockey team, and we haven’t seen one on Broadway in, oh, let’s see, 14 years, five months and 16 days.
	 
Another thing Tortorella wants is this team to be tougher. That doesn’t mean that the guys on this team aren’t tough. They are. All the evidence you need is written in black and blue all across Dan Girardi’s body.
	 
But, unlike his predecessor, Tortorella shows he wants to instill this rigidness by making tangible changes. That means putting Sean Avery on the first line with Marion Gaborik and Vinny Prospal, as he did last night.
	 
As tough as Avery is, he can’t do it all. With that, there needs to be mention of Gaborik fighting his own battles as well. How many times have we seen this guy doing the shoving all by his lonesome? Last night, he takes a gratuitous hack at Mark Andre-Fleury with the puck in the air about an inch from Fleury’s chest. Sidney Crosby pushes him, Gaborik pushes back, then in steps Billy Guerin to give Gabby a nice face wash that was . . . you guessed it, not retaliated!
	 
This guy is arguably the best pure goal scorer this franchise – franchise, established 1926 – has ever seen. Not to mention he’s injury prone. And there he is, in a swarm of opposing players harassing him, with no help. Who in their right mind would come into The Garden and not do that?
	 
The face wash is one of the small things that gets under the skin of opposing players, and results in frustration. Frustration leads to mistakes, mistakes lead to goals, and goals lead to wins. The Rangers don’t instill any frustration, and are therefore voluntarily giving up that edge. It’s a shame.
	 
But, as hockey is played between the whistles, it’s really not about the things after the play that matter. The lack of toughness isn’t about someone coming to shove Guerin to the ground fifteen seconds after the play ends. That’s merely a byproduct of the proper mentality.
	 
The lack of grit is evident when a defensemen watches an opposing player on a beeline to Henrik Lundqvist’s chest, and decides to go for a stick check. Or it’s evident in battles in the corner, when the chosen method to win the battle is by lifting the stick and kicking the puck. Or it’s evident in Mike Rupp beating people to the puck in front of the net and getting two chances on goal before anyone even lays a finger on him. (Mike Rupp, hat trick. Really? Mike-freaking-Rupp!)
	 
This is hockey, for goodness sake! Yes, getting the puck and controlling it is the point, but how you get the puck to where it’s supposed to be – behind the other team’s goalie – is not always by making a slick move with the stick. It’s like the need to go to the body in a heavyweight fight. It’s not going to get you style points, but eventually you’re going to wear down your opponent, he’ll get tired, make a mistake, and that’s when you put him away.
	 
Now, that’s exactly what is happening to the Rangers. Tough teams are wearing them down and they’re cracking in the third period. Yes, they’re young, especially on the backline. But the mistakes being made are not aggressive mistakes. They’re not pushing the game, not pushing their opponents, and they’re letting the other team dictate the style of play.
	 
One more note in this conversation has to be the presence of Donald Brashear. So he’s now on the second line, got 11:37 of ice time last night with Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan, and still refuses to play physical hockey, as it hardly seems he’s concerned with hockey at all. I think it was against the Panthers last Wednesday when he was against the sideboards and the puck came to his feet and he didn’t even acknowledge its existence. He was trying to pick a fight, for no other reason then to pick a fight. If he thinks his job on this team is strictly to pick fights, he’s wrong. He’s also there to play physical hockey, with some emphasis on hockey, as well. He needs to be ready to hit people who have the puck.
	 
So all of this talk about the lack of an edge in the Rangers play is not about the ability of one guy on your team to be able to punch in the face of a guy on the other team. Nor is it about shoving a guy to the ground after the play because he just hit your star player.
	 
It’s about being in the midst of play and playing hard, tough, and physical. It’s the Rangers’ game between the whistles that needs to be tougher, not before or after the puck is frozen. Dropping the gloves is a part of the game (which, in its current incarnation, has me thinking it shouldn’t be, but that’s for another time.) Brashear, if he’s going to continue to get this much ice time, can be a factor in making this team tougher to play against. All he needs to do is show he can bodycheck someone during the course of the game that will make a team not want to come across the middle of the ice with the puck again. Avery can do the same on the top line, by adding some grit and physicality and throwing off the opposing teams best forwards.
	 
Until this team start to play nastier, until they learn how to be annoying and pesty and play like they sincerely don’t like you, they’re going to continue to be mediocre. Maybe there are just too many nice guys in this locker room. Almost everyone in there is affable and willing to converse and talk about the forecheck and systematic differences. They’re a smart group, a talented group, and, to a man, a tough group. But they don’t play with that edge that great teams do. Very few guys on the roster who get significant ice time play with a chip on their shoulder, and that’s a problem.
	 
So yea, Gaborik is going to win you some games singlehandedly. So will Lundqvist. And no, odds are they won’t miss the playoffs because they’re too talented.
	 
But to make an impact, Sam Rosen is going to have to see something on the ice that’s more exciting than poke checks.