Happy 2009 Hockey Fans and welcome to the 3 month home stretch that will take us into warmer weather and Stanley Cup Playoff Hockey. What does this mean for our Broadway blueshirts? Nothing you didn't already know. The Rangers welcomed in the new year the way the left it by dropping a heartbreaker to the Washington Capitols on gasp! a short-handed goal by Alexander Ovechkin. The loss dropped the Rangers to third in the Atlantic and sixth in the Eastern Conference. The Rangers sit in a virtual tie with New Jersey and remain only seven points ahead of the struggling Penguins who seem to have a case of finals hangover. If you watch the games, you don't need me to tell you the problems for the 325897023498 time so let's call this Jared Trumpetto's Recap/Projections....
1) A miserable power play will continue to separate the Rangers from the elite teams in the league. At this point, I can't see this problem getting corrected. It has been a nagging issue since the lockout and the idea that the Rangers coaching is going to turn this around is far fetched. Either the system is flawed or the players aren't executing the system - the only constant has been the coaching. They just better hope that short handed goals don't keep compounding.
2) The Penalty Kill will rebound and remain strong. The Rangers have excellent two way hockey players in Nigel Dawes and Chris Drury as well as an excellent defensemen in Marc Staal and of course Lunqvist speaks for himself. The only problem here is numbers - Killing off 90% of Power Plays is amazing but not when taking 6 penalties a game. When taking poor neutral and offensive zone penalties you increase Penalty Kill minutes, so not only are you giving up a goal per game on PP's but you are draining the energy of players like Voros and Drury thus limiting their effectiveness in even strength situations.
3) The Rangers will sign Mark Messier to a front office job. In situations like this you need to keep winning in your environment, it is a contagious trait and Mark Messier is a winner. The franchise has fallen away from hard-nosed, winning hockey and strayed into the land of over priced free agents; Messier needs to help lead them back.
4) Heads will turn at the trade deadline. Whether it is out of anger or surprise the Rangers will be forced to make a move in order to jump start the team. Tom Renny described it as "Brain-Dead Hockey" but complacency and laziness will ruin playoff pushes. The hope is that the Rangers won't pull a trigger on young talent. Teams won't want large contracts and if it comes down to the wire I would rather settle on a large puck moving defensemen a-la the Christian Bachman deal from last season, or maybe even the Sean Avery gamble...
5) The Rangers will win the Atlantic Division. This is my long-shot but I have to believe that with the lack of enthusiasm, terrible PP and anemic even strength offense that has plagued this team, to only be down 1pt in the standings heading into the break does not bode well for the other Atlantic foes. They may do it with enough shootouts to make you sick but I believe they will do it.
It figures that while I have been typing this post the Rangers have posted 2 PP goals against the Penguins and look much better than I make them out to be. Yet another example of why there is too much talent to play this poorly -
Happy New Year
Keywords: New York Rangers
