Room At the Top for Improvement

The Sean Avery Show was the big sideshow, and after being pretty much of a dud for most of the day and into the night, the Grate One salvaged some entertainment value with his comments to Stan Fischer (watch it at Game On!). The Rangers were a dud for most of the night as well, and they did nothing to redeem themselves in the end. Falling into the Stars' trap, they spent a third straight home game finding ways to fail to convert their scoring chances. Avery didn't drive them to distraction, as he often did to opponents as a Ranger -- the Rangers drove themselves to distraction. If they had put out half the effort they did in the prior game in Detroit, they might have gotten half the results and at least salvaged a point, maybe two.

There is a serious problem on this team that has transformed a 5-0-0 start into a 1-2-1 rut. Despite his power play goal in the opening minute and a better overall game than usual, Markus Naslund has not helped this team in the least. Chris Drury had another pointless and minus game, on the ice for the Stars' game winner, among the portion of defenders running around while the other portion just stood around. What is Drury going to say is the cause of his awful start to this season? He's no longer the new guy like last year. Is it the captaincy weighing him down this time? It certainly seemed so after the game when he was hardly able and hardly willing to articulate any of his thoughts in a meaningful way.

Scott Gomez was obviously not the problem with the former top line -- he had another outstanding game centering two sophomore wingers and would have made a difference had Nigel Dawes been able to finish just one of his many scoring chances. In order to generate offense, Gomez has to have a consistent finisher flanking him. Otherwise, his puck control and playmaking gifts are wasted. One has to wonder if the streaky Dawes can be a consistent finisher. And speaking of consistency -- paging Nikolai Zherdev! Consistency has been the knock against him throughout his career. Is it just coincidence that he has zero points during the Rangers' 1-2-1 run?

Tom Renney had some harsh words for his team after last night's game. Drury and Gomez also speak about the game in our posting today at Blueshirt Bulletin+ -- click here to read it if you subscribe to Blueshirt Bulletin and have registered for BB+ access. If you need instructions on how to access BB+, write to us at Blueshirt@mindspring.com. If you are not a subscriber, E-mail us or click here to learn how to take out a subscription to get the magazine as well as BB+.

The Rangers were rewarded for their work ethic last night with some punitive wind sprints at practice today, according to Rangers Report. Game reports not totally centered on Avery: Newsday, Record, Post, NYR.com, AP, NHL.com, Dallas Morning News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram. Reports mostly or wholly on Avery: Journal News, Daily News, Times, Post, ESPN.com, SI.com, NHL.com, Dallas Morning News, Star-Telegram. Newsday on Voros, the new Avery. Additional game notes: Newsday, Record, Inside Shots, Rangers Rants, Star-Telegram. From the reporters' blogs: Rangers Report here, here, here, and here, Blue Notes here and here, Blue Seats, Blueshirts Blog, Slap Shot, and Prospect Park. From Hartford, Bob Crawford's Wolf Pack Weekly. Honoring Alexei Cherepanov at Omsk's first game since his death: Beyond the Blueshirts and Slap Shot. Beyond the Blueshirts also has a translation of an interview with Jaromir Jagr.

Comments

[jagrmiester]

THANK YOU SLATS!!!!!!!!!!! MADE MY DAY!

[wolfgaze]

Adios Rissmiller!

[Chris]

Jim Rissmiller, we hardly knew ye!

I don’t think there’s any way that his being put on waivers can be construed as anything but good for the team. He definitely had a square peg vibe about him…and if those reports of him fraternizing with the opposition over his own team are true, it was only a matter of time, I guess.

How long before Lamorello signs him?

Can’t disagree with the analysis and comments regarding last night’s game. I’ll only point out that the team is currently on pace to score 117 points. If they win 6 out of every 9, we’re in for a special year…although that’s probably a little too much to ask for.

[Ros]

Rissmiller out!! YES!

[Ant]

dubi its ridicilous to.blame Zherdev for being inconsistent.Why he takes all the blame?What about Dubi? he aint score in those games ether or drury or 4th line well u get my point The whole team played like crap u can't call out certain players when the whole team taking games off.

[Chris]

Anyone take a look at this summers restricted free agents? I can see someone throwing a large offer sheet at Dubinsky and handcuffing us. Dubinsky, Callahan, Zherdev, Dawes, Prucha, Sjostrom, Korpikoski all will be restricted free agents with about 15 mill left in caproom?

[Paul R _ _ _ _ _ D]

Ant I am the last person to chastize someone for grammer but could I ask you to put a space between puncuation and the begginging of the next sentance its hard to read man.

[Ant]

can't they just sign dubi before he becomes a free agent ? plus I dubt dubi gona play games he knows he'll be a captain of the rangers I doubt he'll pull anything.

[nlynn]

Gaborik??

[jagrmiester]

no way Gaborik is coming here, i would love that more than anything tho if he did.

[Draxen]

I agree that it's not really fair to blame Zherdev. Seeing as how outside the resurgence of Gomez playing with wingers who can actually keep up with him Dubinsky's line has STILL been the most consistent line in terms of generating changes. Even in last nights game. So they missed the net a few times etc they are still getting chances.

[Jameson]

Lets claim Jason Ward to replace him haha (just kidding obviously)

[Paul R _ _ _ _ _ D]

before we hit the panio button lets review we had 2 kinda bad games one game decided by refs and 6 others that we won, so lets all relax and hope we won't actually have a reason to worry.

[Draxen]

I'm not worried in the least to be honest, i am bit concerned that it's a certain kind of team that we are having issues with and thats the clog up the neutral zone type. Isn't that what we went with speed to be able to beat?

[Paul R _ _ _ _ _ D]

that should have been panic, I don't know where the above came from

[jagrmiester]

haha Jameson! get Dominic Moore back!

[Dan]

The Rangers don't need to sign another big name free agent, like Gaborik or Sundin. They need to find a way to get the most of out the big names they've already signed. On the other hand, I think we need to wait it out for one more game to see if there's really any cause for alarm. The team has had a grueling schedule and I think a few days off is a good thing.

As for Drury, I'm sure his play will pick up. Looking at his situation objectively, a bit of a points-slump isn't a huge shock: he's thrust into a new role, playing a position that's different from his normal one. That takes some adjustment.

They still have a great record, they're skating and moving the puck better than any Rangers team maybe since 96-97, and they're fun to watch again. Also, Paul Mara beats guys up now, and that's pretty cool. On the whole, I'm happy with the Rangers, and I think whatever is going on with the team is getting way overblown.

[jagrmiester]

Dan, they still need a big scorer.

[Paul R _ _ _ _ _ D]

you tellin me Voros isn't doing it for ya?

[snapper]

Is it possible that Drury has some kind of an injury? Maybe a rib issue? He isn't even good at winning face offs which should be his strong point.

[Chris D.]

I saw in the post that fritsche, prucha and korpi sitting out is like 3.9m of cap space being wasted, doesn't that go up now with rismiller waived if we can pull off a deal? something close to 4.5to 5m in a trade some how can get us a resign on dubi or a winger to help bolster our offense some how?

[jagrmiester]

Voros is great, you know what w/e i cant keep track anymore. I just go to the games i dont work for the team.

[cwgatti]

Can we waive Drury?

[jagrmiester]

no why would we do that. That is dumb. Give Drury time. Dru Hater.

[Jess]

Would love to see Renney and his staff taking some wind sprints as how often have we see these kinds of efforts from the team in the Renney era?

So come Friday will be see the entire lines rebuilt as per the Renney MO?

Rissmiller was a bad signing to begin with but out of fairness the Rangers mishandled this situation by having way too many forwards on the roster at the start of the season.

Wonder if the Columbus media will be all over the Zherdev return on Friday?

[i]

Jess I guess Renney was punishing them for not dumping & chasing. But the question is why didn't they? As far as line combos, he will keep changing them all season long, except for maybe line 4. Not sure why he has that need , but possibly he's reading too many blogs ;-)

[njaco1215]

the second line shouldn't be touched.... hopefully all season. even w/o scoring they seem to keep getting chances. i really wouldnt want to see the dawes-gomez-cally line broken up either, but something needs to spark nas and dru. maybe dru back with cally & dawes to try to jump him.... tho last year he didnt do much the first month.
nas w/ gomez loses speed w/ nas but he may be the one to finish gomez's passes. it comes down to we need a winger that can either get dru & nas going or can play with gomez and nas to get nas going. i dont see that being anyone currently on the bench/scratched oranyone in the system thats ready. hopefully it was just so many games in so few days. i guess only time will tell. im not ready to hit the panic (or paul's piano) button for another month or two

[CraigZ]

How do you think Prucha would work with Gomez??? Z

[CraigZ]

Of course they will...Except for Penn State coming into town the next big thing in Columbus is( I can't think of anything)...Switch Prucha/Korpi with Dawes, Dawes w/ Drury and give Sjostrom some top line minutes to see if he has any kind of scoring touch...Z

[ntb]

I know Columbus is giving away Rick Nash t-shirts on Friday. I'm sure the Dispatch will have something on Zherdev. The Columbus Dispatch does a great job of covering the Blue Jackets. In fact, at one point this summer, Dispatch readers actually complained about the amount of coverage awarded to the hockey team.

[Jess]

I

LOL I know he is not reading Prospect Park then.

Seriously though it is old that we still see that the team is not giving 100%. If anything the Anti-Jagr, Anti-Avery rants from our friends at MSG basically says that without those 2 that this should not be a problem but we are seeing otherwise.

I wonder how much longer I should wait before I say "told people so" that the problems with Naslund was not the situation but Naslund.

A player who's numbers have been declining for a number of years does not need a change of scenery he needs to consider retirement

[i]

Jess It sounds like the Shanahan bus is warming up again. He probably can be a good addition to this TEAM. And if not , Sather and him should be able to resolve it. On Naslund, too bad Renney has refused to sit him even with the extreme schedule for the beginning of this season, and instead has put the extra youngsters in the stands. What he said about Prucha so far he has not done. So I guess he wasn't being totally honest. To go from a 30 goal scorer to this is not just the players fault.

[TonyM]

Genius Sather signed Rissmiler to a $ 3 mil , 3 year contract and he didn't even last 15 games? What kind of homework did he do on him?
He signs an extremely mediocre Redden to a 6 year $ 6.5 mil per year contract , that over pays him about $ 5 mil per year. If I made those bad decisions in my job I would have been fired a long time ago.

[nyrangers 0809]

I would love to see the following.

naslund - gomez - prucha

voros - dubinsky - zherdev

dawes - drury - callahan

sjostrom - betts - orr

With Rissmiler gone, I think its time to get some consistency out there. Try to keep 2 of three guys on each line together.

Any one think we should go after Gaborik. Maybe for Prucha, Rosival, pick or prospect.

[Bob Merchant]

Makes me wonder which Ranger team is the real team. I expected this type of performance after I saw the sub-par preseason. I figured this team will not score with big guns like Jags, Straka and even Avery all gone.

Then the season starts 5-0 and I'm befuddled that I pegged this team all wrong and happily surprised and very confident.

Now with 1 regulation win in the last 4, I find myself with much less confidence than a week ago. Sure the season just started and no, I'm not in a panic. I'm just not sure if we have a team that will cruise to the post season or struggle to make it?

[jagrmiester]

I dont think the Wild want those players in return for Gaborik.

[Paul R _ _ _ _ _ D]

SO was Rismiller sent to Hartford?

[And This One Will Last A Lifetime]

I'm pretty sure any conversation Sather has with the Wild regarding Gaborik starts with at least Dubinsky.

[Ant]

so tony u think Redden is worth 1.5 mills? When u try to diss a player atleast make sense

[oleosmirf]

Drury does not belong on the 3rd line, he is a goal scorer not a setup man.

you can't put him with Callahan and Dawes and expect him to produce at the level he is expected.

with Voros playing well, you need to put Naslund on the 3rd line instead and have Korpikoski or Fritsche center him and to expect anything productive out of Petr Prucha is wishful thinking at best. If he gets 10 goals this season I would be shocked.

[nyrangers0809]

Correct me if I am wrong but didn't Drury, Dawes, Callahan have some good chemistry last year. I think they would be great together. I also think if your concern is about Drury not getting enough time, then lets sit the Betts line more. I am tired of seeing them on when it matters most and we're down.

A bunch of the papers are saying that the rangers only have 2 extra forwrds. none listing Korpi. Any new status on him. Has he been sent down.

[jagrmiester]

hasnt been sent down and if he was then it is for a good reason.

[Paul R _ _ _ _ _ D]

was rissmiller sent down?

[Jameson]

What's with all the hate on Redden?

"Extremely mediocre" ? I know it's kind of an irrational stat I'm about to throw out here, but..he's on pace to score 18 goals if he plays every game, haha. A major part of the powerplay being back on track is Redden is out there to help quarterback it, I don't think him and Gomez are on the same powerplay unit... He's also been good defensively, he might've gotten a little overpaid but that's the market. He's certainly not "Extremely mediocre" that's just a silly thing to say.

[Jameson]

They probably said we only have two extra forwards because whether or not Rissmiller's been sent down he's on waivers, once he clears he's gotta be traded or sent down I'd assume.

Whoever said Rissmiller is signed for 3 years got him and Voros switched up. Rissmiller only has a 1 year contract for $1 million, Voros is on board for $3 years at $1 million a year.

[Jameson]

Oleo,
I continue to have a hard time understanding why everyone gets so wound up in who's the "First line" on this team, when whoever the 1st line is gets marginally more ice time than the 2nd and 3rd. We don't have an Alfredson-Spezza-Heatley type 1st line so there isn't any reason not to just roll the 3rd lines and play the line that's been doing the best more as the game progresses.

It doesn't matter what line Drury is on, because with your way of thinking if you take Naslund and put him on the 3rd line with Korpi or Fritsche centering him then you clearly have someone on the wing with him and Gomez who "doesn't belong on the 1st line" whether it's prucha, sjostrom, or whoeveer.