68's Return Ruined in 68 Seconds

Jaromir Jagr came out unexpectedly for warm-ups last night. But he didn't skate much. He stood near the red line, stick across his thighs, arms on stick, watching the Devils -- that's what he often does during warm-ups, while skating lightly. Martin Brodeur took a break from his own warm-ups and skated up to the red line, on the other side of the ice, and watched Jagr. Jagr chose that moment to skate across, pick up a puck, stickhandle down the ice and slide a weak backhander on net. He then skated directly to the Ranger bench and left the ice, ending his warm-up, with Brodeur still watching. It didn't look like he was ready to play.

But there he was, on the ice for the start of the game, rousing the home crowd that was already pumped for its first playoff game in nine years -- nine years! You could see #68 on the big screen as he came down the runway from the locker room. And there was #68 on the ice during the Star Spangled Banner, and for the opening face-off. He was with his usual linemates, Michael Nylander and Martin Straka. They had a decent shift and left the ice in favor of the checking line. Sandis Ozolinsh also came out with Tom Poti. Ozolinsh wasn't on the ice for 20 seconds when he let the puck bounce over his stick, trapping him for a two on one.

So 68 seconds into the game, the Rangers were already down 1-0, the cheers for Jagr were replaced by lusty boos directed at Ozolinsh, and the Devils were well on their way to extending their series lead to 3-0 with a 3-0 shut-out. Instead of Jagr invoking the ghost of Willis Reed and making his miracle come true, the trap-happy Devils slowed the game down to a boring crawl and suffocated the life out of the Rangers.

"We almost done," Jagr said afterwards. "Somehow we have to score -- we're not able to score goals. Any mistake we made, they scored. We gave them two odd man rushes, they scored on both of them. They just scored on every oppotunity. Every time they go two on one, three on two, they score a goal. Not even in practice if you try it, you're not gonna do it. I don't know if we are that bad defensively or they're that good offensively. Everything looks the same all the time -- two on one, they are able to make the pass. Sooner or later we have to learn to play two on one."

It's tough to play two on one when you're Tom Poti and you have to back up an increasingly errant Ozolinsh. Poti hasn't been bad, but he's just not known for the type of defense that snuffs out odd man rushes. There are a lot of reasons the Rangers are going down in the flames of what is now an eight game losing streak, not the least of which is that the Devils, winners of fourteen straight, are playing near perfect hockey. But what may ultimately stand out as the single most significant difference maker is the costly performance turned in by Ozolinsh in the past two games.

"It's tough to start the game hearing that," coach Tom Renney said of the crowd booing Ozolinsh, whom he conceded may have to be scratched for the next game for everyone'es benefit. "It affects nineteen other people in a big way, because he's a teammate -- we pride ourselves on that from the get go." That sounded an awful lot like Renney defending Ozolinsh from the crowd's response to him without fully accounting for the fact "response" was a key part of the equation -- the crowd was not being unfair.

Jagr understood that. "The fans were good," he said. "We didn't help them much -- after a minute and a half they scored a goal. That never helps. The energy was here, the crowd was good. Too bad -- we made a mistake."

"I'm not creating drama," Jagr said of his decision to play. "After the warm-up, I tried to shoot, and it was OK. If I can help, if I can play, I'm gonna play. I knew it's not gonna be any good, but I tried my best. I knew I'm not gonna be a big factor. I was hoping they're gonna play the checking line against my line, and maybe let other guys play against offensive lines. It still didn't work." Asked how limited he was, he simply answered, "You could see," which of course you could, especially on an early Ranger power play when Michal Rozsival kept feeding him the puck, the crowd exhorted him to shoot, and he dished off instead. It hurt to shoot, he said, which makes sense, his injured appendage being his left one, his shooting side.

He took several hits to his left side, but he said it didn't affect him. "I finished the game," he said. "I'm OK -- it didn't get any worse." He admitted to taking a pain killing shot, and hinted that he wore a brace, but he said that he wouldn't divulge what exactly was injured until after the series. "They know every chance they get, they try to hit you," he said of the Devils. Asked if he thought Grant Marshall was going after him on his first shift when the two bumped in center ice away from puck, apparently by accident, Jagr took the opportunity to poke fun at the Devils' world class whining hypocrite. "That's tough to say with him," he said, smiling. "He's got his head down all the time, doesn't know what's going on around him. I don't think he even seen me."

Lost in the shuffle was Martin Rucinsky's unexpected return to action. Right up until yesterday, Rucinsky and the Rangers made it seem as if he was still a long way away from playing. Even today, just testing things out in warm-ups was called a "remote possibility." But Rucinsky played, and played well, looking like himself. So overlooked was his return to action that he was crowded out of his locker by the crush of reporters trying to the player in the next locker over -- Jagr. During some stretches of the game, Rucinsky and Jagr flanked center Steve Rucchin, playing on a broken foot, on what could only be called the Walking Wounded Line. The trio was put together so that their ice time could be managed and more ice time given to the healthy forwards. Jagr also skated with Dominic Moore and Marcel Hossa.

Henrik Lundqvist, who looked and sounded so confident at practice this morning, was still not all there. He gave up goals on the first shot he saw in each of the first two periods, three goals on nine shots. Two on one, three on two, and a weird deflection -- the kind of goals that goalies are let off the hook for. But the truth is, those were just about the only scoring opportunities the Devils had in the whole game, as they sat hard on their early lead and waiting for chances to counterattack rather than taking the play to the Rangers -- Lundqvist needed to erase at least one of those Ranger mistakes in order to give his team a chance to win, but he was unable to do so. Nevertheless, Renney saw enough improvement in his game to have already named him started for Game 4 on Saturday.

Comments

[Bob Merchant]

With all the bad publicity given to Weekes this season, I wondered aloud if he would have stopped those shots last night? Hank is still not right, mental, timing, whatever.. This is now the Rangers darkest hour. In retrospect, would not matter who is in net when your own team is is incapable of scoring a lone goal. Quite a gutsy move by Jagr to even dress last night. He indeed inspired the fans but not his team. For some reason if you are looking for any hope at all, plug in your 1994 cup video and listen to Bure when asked about being down being down 3 games to none against one of their opponents. He said, "we never said we had to win the next four games, we just said we have to win this game. After that we have to win this game and so on." Now that's a stretch considering what we have watched on the ice. This team is not the 94 Canucks. I don't think anyone is much going to come up with any magic cure to what ails the Rangers. Even if JJ was healthy, the rest of this team is off right now.
I hope for Renney's sake, he chooses to sit OZO and I hope that was the last game of his Ranger tenure. I don't even think the ultimate optimist "throwaway" will come up with any rabbits left in his hat..........but I wish he did have one.

[throwaway]

Sorry, Bob, no wabbits from me today. This one was disheartening. Not much for me to add right now. When you have no confidence in your goalie, every muff by an Ozolinsh is magnified, every missed scoring chance by a Sykora is magnified. And let's give the Devils their due -- they're like a machine with their efficiency.

[T-Bone]

<>...RANGERS SUCK!!!!

We fucking blow :(

[Lurker Kev]

Thanks for the update, T-Bone! What would we do without your biting wit and insightful commentary?

[Alan]

If there was one thing I thought we had settled this year, it was that we'd found our star goalie for years to come. Now, I'm wondering about his mental fortitude. Would you be as confident now going forward in the off-season that our goalie situation is settled once and for all? Or do we just chalk this up to fatigue, the Olympics, his hip flexor injury? He has to play on Saturday...if he's bad, he's no worse off than he is now; if he has a good game, at least he'd be able to take some confidence into the offseason. This is no longer about winning the series, but just to get a win....just for the hell of it (no pun intended). Otherwise, this will be like the year that Espo fired Bergeron and they lost what, like their last 10-11 in a row.

[Frankie]

Why was there some immigrant in front of MSG yesterday giving out free copies of BB??

[Dubi]

We put together a promotional issue to hand out at the home playoff games to try to attract some new subscribers. The issue contained material previously published in past issues -- a sort of "Greatest Hits" to give prospective subscribers an idea of what we do. But the way the game went and the series is going, I doubt we'll get enough subscriptions to even cover the cost of producing the special issue. So you won't be seeing any sympathy for Sandis Ozolinsh in these quarters!

[Jess]

Alan

In Europe they play 1-2 games a week, they hardly have to travel and life is so different for a player. Lundqvist played a total of 58 games (including playoffs) in 04-05 for Frolunda.

This season he has played 53 games with the Rangers PLUS 5 more for Sweden in the Olympics and now 2 more in the playoffs. I have not even included the exhibtion games either. I am not even going to talk about the travel, the several back to back games etc etc.

Tom Renney kept saying he needed 2 solid goalies all season long but didn't really say why.

Now We know and it really bothered me to see Henrik say on several occasions that he was either tired or a bit worn out. IF he wants to have a long term career here in the NHL then he had best develop some more mental toughness.

So when readers of the BB read my pre draft forecast and wonder why I have a goalie listed as one of the Ranger draft needs then remember how fragile Henrik supposedly is and I think Sather's statement in 04 about never having enough goalies is going to ring true.

Our franchise goalie now has some question marks about him

[Dubi]

Jess, you added in the non-league games Henrik played this season, but not the non-league games he played last season. He said the other day he played over 70 games in 2004-05 when you add it all the tournaments he participated in as Sweden's #1 goalie. Fatigue was not a factor -- lack of sharpness due to the layoff and a loss of confidence was the problem. If he hadn't gotten hurt, he may well have been the same goalie all the way through.

[throwaway]

Alan -- when i went back to my seat after our between-periods conversation, I spent almost the entire rest of the game focusing on Henrik, kind of hoping-against-hope that I'd see some positive sign to build on. It got to the point where I was hoping the Devils would attack him to see how he'd respond. As I watched, I was making specific mental notes, like how starting with 13 minutes left in the 3rd he made a couple of saves where he looked sharp to me. But late in the 3rd there was a sequence where he went back to looking "not right", and this was, of course, without the Devils really exerting much pressure at all. I refuse to believe this is all mental -- maybe I just don't want to believe it. His movement seems off, to the point where he doesn't seem at all comfortable or in control. I agree with the need to play him Saturday, though I suspect we'll have to wait 'til next year for any definitive type answer.

[TonyM]

The game Wedn night may have been lost by shoddy defense and ordinary goaltending, but even if we were strong on D and Henke was great, we could have lost 1-0 still.
You don't win if you don't score. The turning point to the game for me was Peter Sykora's unbelievable wide open net misses. If he converts on those two wide open nets it would have been a completely different game. We needed to score to start to break down that Brodeur air of invincibility. To break their confidence etc. Alternatively it would have given the Rangers confidence that they are so sorely lacking right now.
I would not overeact , as some people here have , to Henke's poor performances. Yes something is wrong, but this goalie has been terrific for quite a while and I expect he will bounce back next year. People are ready to write him off. Calm down people!
You reap what you sow and Renney did just that playing Sandis again. Sandis will probably go down as the only blemish on Sather's report card this year. He made a terrible mistake trading for this fumbling , bumbling Dman. I called for a defensive Dman with some grit at the trading deadline. We are already loaded with offensive dmen. We need stay at home types to compliment our puck moving types.and keep the puck out of our end and clear the crease. I would trade this guy for a jar of pickles because that's all you going to get for a misfit who makes $ 2 plus million for another year.
Burke fleeced Sather on this trade.

[Alan]

I'm not writing Henrik off at all, just lamenting the unexpected chink in the armor and hoping that he'll bounce back. As far as the Ozo trade being the only blemish on Sather's report card, Sykora is a UFA who was acquired for a young defenseman expressly to bury chances like he had in Games 2 and, especially, 3. If he's not re-signed and we're left with nothing, I think you have to question that deal too, even if Kondratiev is really only a #5-6 defenseman. (He has 4 goals and 4 assists in 4 playoff games for Portland, wow!)

[Bob Merchant]

Tony. I agree with much of your comments except the fact that we are loaded with offensive D-men. Sure they are slated to be offensive like Poti and Tyutin but how many goals did they really produce? Certainly not so much coming from Malik, Kaspar and very little from Rozy and Struds. I think as a whole, we have about the poorest point and shot production from the point of almost any team in the NHL. I can't fault Sather for attempting to get a booming shot from the blue-line. I can fault Ozo for bumbling around like the Keystone cops but the intent of the trade was good. It just backfired and blew up in our face. I'd like to see Jess comment on who can fill that need that is already in the system. What we need is a 22 year old Brian Leetch. Do we have any of those in development Jess? Truth be told, I lick my chops when hearing names like Chara and Redden that may be available. I'm sure every club in the NHL is also salivating about those guys.

[saget]

i'm a little surprised Dubi hasn't pointed out that Parise scored the 3rd goal (and take another shot at Sather for passing over him to pick Jessiman).

[Dubi]

That's a story for another day, Saget.