Maybe it was for the best that I had no television service in my home this past week. Because Dish Network couldn’t provide repair service in a timely fashion, my husband decided it was time to give the Dolan family more of our money by switching to IO Cable. Service was restored just in time for me to watch the Rangers lose their third straight game on this Western road trip to the Edmonton Oilers.

I listened to the other two games against Calgary and Vancouver on the radio and the only thing I can say in defense of the Rangers is that the teams in the Western Conference are light years better than those in the East. You have only to look at the stats and the standings to come to this concluson.

Posters on the other message boards I frequent are screaming about last night’s Ranger loss. How could they lose to the lowly Edmonton Oilers? Garon isn’t that good. The Oilers are 24th in the league in team defense and 22nd in offense according to the Hockey Rodent’s RealStats:

Real Offense http://hockeyrodent.com/R1954.HTM2

Real Defense http://hockeyrodent.com/R1954.HTM3

Maybe these same people should look at these stats for the Rangers. The Rangers are 30th in the league on offense and an amazing 6th in the league on defense. The Edmonton Oilers are 18-21-3 and have 40 points. Calgary, the team the Rangers lost to 4-3 on Wednesday, have 51 points, are 7th in the league in offense and 22nd in defense. The Vancouver Canucks, who shut out the Rangers 3-0 on Thursday, have 50 points. Vancouver is 20th on offense and 2nd in defense as per the Hockey Rodent. Every team in the Northwest Division has more points then the Rangers (45) except the Oilers (40).

Put all these statistics into context and you draw the following conclusions: Next to the Southeast, the Atlantic Division is the weakest in the league; and, the Rangers at 3 games over .500 would be among the cellar dwellars of the Western conference teams, specifically the Northwest division teams with whom they just played.  

Should the fact that the Rangers only managed to garner 1 point in their last three games send some Ranger fans off the deep end?  Of course not. The Atlantic Division is a five horse race. With half the season left, The Rangers will not see another Western Conference team on the road. The Ducks, Sharks and Kings will play the Rangers at the Garden. Only San Jose is the clearly superior team to the Rangers.

The rest of the season starts Tuesday back home in the Garden against Tampa.  The Atlantic Division is a horse race with only 4 points seperating the Rangers from the first place Devils and 1 point seperating the Rangers from the last place Islanders. The Rangers need to take care of business at home. If after the All Star Break the Rangers are still struggling, then I will be more concerned.

After all is said and done about this road trip, I have but one burning question for Coach Renney. Tom, what were you thinking about starting Avery in the shoot out against Edmonton?