“I needed to protect Henrik maybe with a little better personnel at the end of the period…late in the game…quite honestly and I owe him (Lundqvist) a better coaching effort then that quite honestly…Tonight I dropped the ball a bit.”

While I appreciate this apology from Tom Renney and the spirit in which it was made, I still cannot fathom what was going through Renney’s head. What demon possessed him when he tapped Jaromir Jagr on the shoulder? He sent him out to take the final shift of the game with Tampa’s net empty and six attackers on the ice? Surely, it wasn’t done to protect Henrik Lundqvist’s shut out. Were that the intention, Renney should have had his penalty killing forwards out there, Betts, Orr, Hollweg maybe Strudwick.

At the last minute mark, Renney had Hossa, Mara, Staal, Shanahan and Gomez out there. They managed to get through their half minute and hold Tampa off. At the next faceoff, with 33.2 seconds left, Renney sends out Jagr, Drury, Girardi, Tyutin and Dubinsky. Drury did his part in winning the faceoff. But why send out the defensively inept Jagr and rookie like Dubinsky to effectively kill a six on five?

Was it in an effort to get one of his two nonscoring “premium” forwards an empty net goal? Could that have been his subconcious thinking? Jagr gets hit along the boards and does not support the puck. The pucks squirts out away from the collision. A Tampa player pokes the puck out to Kuba at the left point. Kuba hammers it home, destroying Henrik’s shutout.

Here are four things I never want to see in a Ranger game again this season:

Lundqvist, out of his net, trying to be cute playing the puck and getting burned:

Any Ranger player retaliate against a goaltender unless a penalty is blown on the goalie first;

Jaromir Jagr out on the ice in the final minute of a game where the Rangers have the lead;

and, the Rangers getting owned by the Icelanders.

Feel free to add your items to the list.

Posted under New York Rangers