Rangers on thin ice
THE RANGERS are at a crossroads, and team brass must decide where they’re going because right now they’re going nowhere fast.
Does management believe its team is capable of playing better and will improve, or is this season already a lost cause before they’ve even gotten to November?
Will a major personnel shakeup or a coaching change alter the course of this season? Is this season even salvageable? Is it too early to start steering their thought process toward competing in 2018-19?
There is very little evidence to suggest the Rangers are capable of the drastic turnaround they’ll need to be playoff contenders. They look much more like a bad team than an underachieving good one.
Monday marks 272 days since Alain Vigneault received a twoyear extension on a contract that now runs through the 2019-20 season, an extension that at the time he deserved. Rangers brass clearly believed then that Vigneault was the right man to continue to lead the club from behind the bench.
But a 3-7-2 start wasn’t anticipated. And when a team is constantly falling behind while looking lethargic early in games, the coach must shoulder blame.
How much, though? Captain Ryan McDonagh tried to put all the heat on he and his teammates after Saturday’s loss in Montreal, during which they were outshot 19-2 in an atrocious first period. He spoke about needing “piss and vinegar” at the start of games. “That’s totally on us as players,” McDonagh said.
And another comment made by McDonagh — one of many culprits throughout this terrible start — came across as a subtle defense of Vigneault and his staff. “Nothing about scheme or systems with that first period,” McDonagh said.
It is incumbent, then, on the captain and the rest of the leadership group to make sure all players take the ice with the necessary effort required to be competitive for an entire game.
From the moment longtime NHL head coach Lindy Ruff, whose 736 regular-season wins are the fifth-most in NHL coaching history, was added as a defensive assistant, many wondered if that would add pressure on Vigneault in the event things went south. The Rangers entered Sunday 24th in goals against per game (3.5) and 25th in penalty-kill percentage (77.8 percent.)
Would anything really change under Ruff? The roster constructed by general manager Jeff Gorton — whose goal was to “rebuild on the fly” — is flawed. They’re weak down the middle after the Derek Stepan trade — the return on which is not shown on the NHL roster, with Lias Andersson sent to develop in Sweden and Tony DeAngelo now in Hartford. The Rangers’ back end, which was supposed to be fortified with Kevin Shattenkirk and Brendan Smith each signed to four-year deals, has been a mess. Their carelessness with the puck has been egregious.
The expectations were for the Rangers to return to the playoffs for the eighth straight season and they aren’t going to get there playing like they’ve been. Something’s gotta give.