Is Vanilla All This Team Can Truly Be. . .?

I'd hope not. But so far this season there just isn't much evidence to argue against that idea.

Vanilla. Yes, there is that word again. Remember Steven Stamkos and I happen to like vanilla as an ice cream flavor. But I however do not - NOT - like vanilla on my hockey team!

Larry Brooks wrote a heck of an article today, with one of his best lines of the year; and he's had quite a few.

BLUESHIRTS NEED PERSONALITY FIX

Brooks wonders, among other things, why Sather, so long a fan of the big personality, big chance type guy, suddenly finds himself with:

"this class of players that seems more like a busload of tourists determined not to get separated from the group than they do citizens of the city the way Jagr was and Avery was and Messier, Leetch, Richter and Graves were?"

Wow. The "busload of tourists" description is kind of uncanny right?

Name one guy, save Hank, who can be THE guy on this team. I've been saying it all year.

There is no one, no one save mostly bland and vanilla.

And those few that aren't: Valiquette, Prucha, Zherdev, Korpikoski, Mara; they are not in position to be anything outside the favored system, if they even get a chance to play at all. And none of the just mentioned are anywhere near what Messier and the like were. Not that many could ever hope to be.

Argue Avery's inclusion all you want. Surely Brooks is not implying that Avery belongs in the same sentence with all these either current or future Hall of Famers and/or Garden number retirees on their legendary status.

He's merely saying that that guy WAS New York. In his actions on the ice, and his passion for the game while he was here. Yes. That guy was more man of the city than passive observer.

This current team is all passive observer.

And the one guy that can - and does - carry them, is being overused, plain and simple.

It is fascinating though. Who's idea was it? Obviously Sather got the personnel in here (although perhaps Renney pulled for his guys and Pearn pulled for Redden, although one really knows why), but I pondered over dinner and after reading Brooks' article, that if this is not Sather's type of team, perhaps he finally gave Renney reigns to do it his way?

After a few years of letting Jagr and his play make or break this team, maybe Renney finally got to do what he wanted. Make a team as - like the guy or not - bland and boring as perhaps he wants them to be.

I find it suspiscious, still, that Renney got to hand pick his captain and he picked the guy in the room least likely to say anything. Anything when things went right. Anything when things went wrong.

Anything.

But what do I know?

I know that I still stand by what I said at the end of last week after the Pittsburgh collapse. There is no way that this team, this team that cannot score, will make it past one round in the playoffs if they have to face a team like Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Montreal, or New Jersey. No way. They can win a game or two, but they are not shutting down those offenses for a long series.

And, face it, unless they suddenly wake up and learn to score, this team cannot score enough to make a difference.

And even though it's been said before by Brooks, he again points out just how badly Gomez and Drury are performing compared to expectations. Maybe we as fans can't expect too much out of guys that should be complementary players and not leaders, but if they are being paid to do such, the least they can do is be vocal when it counts and be held accountable when they aren't cutting it.


On the flip side, new/old Journal News blog writer, Rick Carpiniello, wrote a pretty nice argument in favor of Renney.

http://rangers.lohudblogs.com/2009/02/01/let-the-discussion-begin-yikes/

Assuming for a moment that I agree with the "this is the best he can do with what's given" argument, I still have a few problems with Renney. They are:

-The fact that no one on this team, save those that really shouldn't be, are held accountable when need be. If other coaches, coaches who have been in the league longer and brought their team further in the playoffs (Lindy Ruff, Craig MacTavish, Guy Carbonneau) can sit or publically call out their BEST players when they are having a bad night or stretch of games, why does Renney outright refuse to do the same? He many times refuses to even admit when a player is playing horribly but rather stands by them like a protective father. Is he their coach or their best friend? He can't be both. And he has to be mean when that is necessary to correct a problem!

-The fact that the powerplay has been horrific, not just for this season, but for the last few before it. It's only savings grace, post-lockout, was Jagr and Nylander, who even if they didn't score, still ate up time in the offensive zone wearing out opponents. This year the powerplay not only isn't scoring; it's given up the most shorthanded goals in the entire league. And not only has this coach not answered for it AT ALL, but he's not changed anything AT ALL. Last week in Pittsburgh I saw the same Drury/Gomez/Naslund train wreck that started the first two months on the powerplay. WORST of all - - They weren't even practicing it at practice. They only started when practically forced into it by fans and media. If that's not a joke, I don't know what is.

-The fact that he will hold players out of the lineup with no explaination, and, even worse, give horribly two-faced and hypocritical answers if he gives justification for his actions at all. He's lying or he's lying by ommission. Either way, this coach is lying. And he's doing it to one of the ONLY players that has constantly shown heart and loyalty. It's the biggest mystery of them all!

On that note, Rick has promised to ask Renney about Prucha, as he himself is confused. Add Rick to the one person Prucha support committee in Larry Brooks, and we'll see if he can get any answers for the rest of us.

And I'll Turn It Over To You Larry [UPDATED]. . .

After games like yesterday, I greatly look forward to waking up and reading Larry Brook's column in the New York Post to make some sense of the apparently non-sensical.

He did another great job of that today.

Here are the highlights:

"Somehow, the Rangers almost always look far worse in losing than they appear impressive in winning."

That statement is so damn true it hurts. When they lose, they lose ugly. When they win, they often win in such an uninspiring fashion, it feels like a loss.

There've been so few wins this season that truly felt like wins, I'm now struggling to think of an example to type here. An example of a decisive, all-around, courageous, passionate, team win.

The one early game against the Devils at the Garden came close, the game (not so long ago) against Pittsburgh at the Garden two weeks ago today was another perhaps.

But with 27 wins and more than halfway into the season, it's hard for me to accept that there hasn't been more to cheer about.

"An optical illusion" their record is according to Brooks. And he's right. I've been saying "smoke and mirrors" for a few months now. This team has been lucky at times, but they got exposed - again - in the worst way yesterday.

Unfortunately, they'll probably somehow scrape together one of their Renney-patented 2-1 victories at the Garden tomorrow, to make everyone think it's A-OK in Rangerland. And the team, as constructed, will live another day.

But as if there is anything they can really do about that? Personnel wise I mean. But that is nothing new. As I mentioned late last week, they are stuck with most of this un-tradeable lot for at least the next three seasons.

Oh, but of course, they can swap healthy scratches, right?

"Renney broke up the line late in the third, replacing Callahan with Nigel Dawes. The coach, at the same time, shifted Callahan onto the unit with Chris Drury and Petr Prucha. Why does it seem that the move was a precursor to sitting Prucha tomorrow night and replacing him with Aaron Voros, a scratch throughout the road trip?"

Even before the lines were officially switched yesterday, I figured this is the perfect type of game for Renney to say, oh, this, this isn't working, let's shake it up. And I figured, of course, it'd be Prucha taking a seat in order for him to do so. So reading this was not a surprise. It made me nauseated, but it was not a surprise at all.

I mean, surely - obviously - it was Prucha's lack of intensity and lack of scoring or his defensive liability - his soley - that caused yesterdays embarassment on ice.

Obviously.

It couldn't possibly be that - yet again - the entire team was exposed for the frauds they are. That they are a "rotten," uninspired team, that somehow managed to bore their way to the top of the conference.

And one of the few exciting and inspired players - the guy who started the renaissance against a flailing Islanders team on Garden ice, the guy who scored the only goal a few days later in Washington, and the guy whose gutsy play from his rear end a week later in Ottawa lead to the game winning goal - is going to take a seat because, really, who else can the coach blame?

I'd be more disturbed, if I didn't know it was coming, somewhere down the pike. Team efforts - good team efforts - were going to come to an end soon. Or, rather, this team was going to be exposed for their complete and utter lack of them.

That time came yesterday.

Oh and make no mistake. These are not your father's New York Rangers.

Hell, they are not even the New York Rangers of my youth. At least those guys weren't boring. At least they weren't as life-less as the bunch of "oh but we love each other" drones I saw yesterday and that I've seen most of this season.

And the one guy that isn't a boring drone, he'll probably take a seat tomorrow.

A shame really. Just truly a shame.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/01192009/sports/rangers/rangers_road_trip_ends_with_ugly_loss_150857.htm


**Author's note on edit:
Please note that I read Larry's column on my own this morning before readng Sam Weinman's Rangers Report. But apparently he agrees with me. Great line by Brooks:

http://rangers.lohudblogs.com/2009/01/19/critical-juncture/