Survivors

Thanks to Dominic Moore and Petr Prucha, we don't have to dwell on all the things that went wrong in Florida tonight. On the Rangers taking the reeling Panthers (five straight losses) lightly, especially after an excellent shift by Moore's fourth line drew a penalty that the Rangers converted into a 1-0 lead five minutes in. On another game of double-digit penalties, including an inexcusable six third period minors. On a stunning series of defensive miscues where defenders literally -- and we mean literally -- backed off and let opponents walk in alone on goal, or handed the puck over deep in the Ranger zone. On another night where the power play short-circuited itself. On a handful of strange roster decisions.

Well, we will dwell on some of the strange roster decisions, but Moore's equalizer, banked in off of Roberto Luongo from the behind the net with three seconds left in regulation, and Prucha's sudden death shootout goal, scored with his usual aplomb after Martin Straka and Jaromir Jagr hit goal posts on their chances, puts all those other items in the category of: sometimes you have to find ways to win games against poor injury-decimated teams even when you put up a stinker of your own.

New Rules, Old Refs: For a November tilt between two teams expected to be also-rans, the real story tonight was not who won or lost or why, but how inarguably atrocious the officiating was. You've heard the old saying, don't throw out the baby with the bath water. The NHL made the mistake of not throwing out the baby with the bath water. The new rules and new standards of officiating are just fine, but the familiar inconsistency in the way they are called makes a mockery of them.

With the notable exception of the initial penalty call drawn by Moore, you couldn't get a call tonight unless you dove (both teams). Prucha was tripped on one occasion, held on another -- no calls. Jagr slewfooted someone as Moore scored -- no call. But Stumpel holds Jagr's stick around his waist, and Jagr gets a hooking call. Ortmeyer gets whacked in the face same as Nylander got four minutes for when he whacked a Panther -- no call. Michael Nylander gets pushed into the goalie -- and he goes for goaltender interference.

These are not problems with interpretation of the new rules. This is classic NHL-style officiating -- inscrutable, inconsistent, infuriating.

This problem has brewed and stewed for several games, and is getting increasingly out of control. Put your stick into the midsection and you're going away for two minutes, fine -- but not if everything else under the sun is overlooked, including the swan dives guys are taking to make sure you noticed the stick in the midsection. What's going to happen is predictable -- the poor officiating, and the resulting hue and cry from the media and management, will cause the league to back off, for the umpteenth time, from its crackdown, and stickwork will return to plague the NHL again.

Missed Opportunity: The league should be kicking itself in the head for going to shootouts to resolve games instead of going from a four on four OT period to a three on three secondary OT period. You could see that in the half-minute of three on three play at the start of tonight's OT, where it was back and forth, odd man rushes, three on ones -- no game could possibly remain unresolved after five minutes of three on three. And half a minute of it was more exciting than any shootout. If the ultimate rationale for the shootout, even for hockey professionals who despise it, is that it gets the fans excited, that rationale was shot down with one short look at how thrilling three on three play can be.

And if you watched tonight's shootout on MSGN, you got a rare treat -- when the MSGN feed died right at the start of it, the network made a good quick decision to pick up Florida's FSN broadcast. That meant you got to hear Denis Potvin call the shootout. Oh joy! Good thing the Rangers won it.

More Moore: To be honest, Jagr has not looked sharp for the past few games. He made one incredible play tonight on the second goal, reaching back with three guys around him and deflecting an errant mid-air pass down for wide-open Martin Straka to step into and shoot. Meanwhile, Moore was all over the place -- from that first shift that led to the first goal to the last second heroics. And his linemates, Jed Ortmeyer and Ryan Hollweg, worked their tails off as usual, creating a few good opportunities along the way. Prucha was not completely effective as a third line winger and power play specialist, but the determination in the way he skates and plays the puck tells you that over time, he will make things happen. Blair Betts and Jason Ward also had good games on the penalty kill, and Betts matched Straka with a team-high four shots on goal.

Yet Ville Nieminen started the game on the first line and moved to the second line before finally riding the pine at even strength for much of the third period. What gives? The way he's playing, Moore should be getting 20 minutes a game of ice time -- power play, penalty kill, and as regular a turn at even strength as anyone. Steve Rucchin, his goal and assist in this game notwithstanding, has struggled defensively in the past two games and has not put up a second line's worth of offense, and neither have any of his most frequent linemates other than Martin Rucinsky. Time to make Moore and Orts the second line they're already acting like. And just why the heck is Prucha not playing with his mentor Jagr full time as long as Rucinsky remains sidelined? He's long past the let's bring him along slowly stage after his game-winning heroics in two of the past three games.

On defense, there comes a time when you just have to cut your losses and not worry about salary or trade value. Tom Poti is handicapping the team something fierce. Waive him -- if someone claims him, addition by subtraction is as good as getting a bag of pucks-like return like Fedor Fedorov or Jeff Taffe; if not, you save even more on your cap calculation while he's in Hartford and a guy like Thomas Pöck, who won the job in pre-season, finally gets the chance he deserves, bringing a hunger to his game that Poti proved he didn't have when he blamed everyone else but himself for his benchings earlier this season. Or Jason Strudwick -- he has been better defensively, no worse offensively, and can throw a hit or a punch when you need it (and the Rangers sure needed it tonight after Florida responded to Hollweg's injurious hit to Mezei early in the game, that response jump-starting their game as much as anything).

And in net: While we agree with Coach Renney that the Rangers will ultimately need both Weekes and Lundqvist to be sharp over the course of the season if they are to succeed, letting Lundqvist sit for nine days between starts is playing with fire. Lundqvist was good tonight, but he had a couple of lapses of the kind he was not having when he was playing regularly (if Olli Jokinen could hit the net regularly, this game would have been over long before Moore or Prucha could step up). Riding the hot hand is a good idea, but perhaps the way to do that and keep both goalies sharp is to give the hot hand three out of four games rather than three in a row. Weekes will be back in net tomorrow in Tampa.

Comments

[[saget]]

dubi - i agree with everything you say, but I don't think there's any need to follow the 4-on-4 OT with a 3-on-3 period before the shootout. 4-on-4 is exciting enough, and if you just extended it to 10 minutes, instead of 5, the shootout would be even less of an issue.

[throwaway]

I found your link from another blog (Ranger Game Log), and I've enjoyed reading your write-ups on the Rangers. I think you're right-on about getting Moore's line more ice time; as I posted on the other site, Hollweg, in particular, often suffers since he's not part of the special teams going either way. I think of Moore's line, and often Betts' line, as the "momentum lines" because of the way they raise the team's energy level, but they need to get more regular shifts. Not only will that energize the team, it also will give us an indication of how these kids, several of whom don't yet have a lot of NHL experience, will hold up over the grind of a full NHL season.
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