I don’t feel like being nice tonight. I know it’s the holiday season but The Rangers really need to be ripped a new one and I’m just the woman to do it.

Here’s the $64 million dollar question. Is there a manjack on this team that will hit someone? Is there any player on this team that will make the opposition pay for touching the puck? Marian Gaborik scored 5 goals tonight because no one this team was willing to stop him.

Regardless of the officials deciding the outcome of the game early on, after the score was 4-1, I would have sat the top two lines and told the third and fourth line players to pound the living daylights out of the Wild. When the outcome of the game was clear, I would have salvaged my scorers (I use that term loosely) for tomorrow’s game against Colorado. Let the grinders exact as many pounds of Marian Gaborik’s flesh as possible.

Only Jason Strudwick stepped up when he had had enough. Our Captain and our Alternates were physically invisible. Jaromir Jagr has no business wearing the C. He does not lead. He does not hit. And this season, he does not score.

Brendan Shanahan needs to call up his old friend in Detroit, Chris Chelios, and be reminded of how to hit people and make them pay to touch the puck. Two years removed from Detroit is turning Brendan into a soft, old hockey player. Cheli is old but he’ll never be soft. I never thought I would be disappointed in Brendan Shanahan but I am tonight.

More than anything, tonight’s game begs the question, why are Colton Orr and Ryan Hollweg on this team? The only thing these two guys do well is hit. Tonight they were invisible. Our penalty kill was horrendous. Is Marcel Hossa the new Jed Ortmeyer? Is Sean Avery really that key a player to this team. No wonder he has every starlet in the universe at his beck and call. He’s the only guy on the Rangers who consistantly proves he has the cojones to be a hockey player.

Lastly, Henrik Lundqvist turned in another pedestrian game. He couldn’t stop Gaborik on the breakaway. Very disappointing. Valiquette redeemed himself by stopping Gaborik from getting a sixth goal. He stood up to the challenge. Too bad the rest of his teammates didn’t.