The classic case in point was the Dave Schultz/Dale Rolfe “incident” back at the Spectrum during the 1974 Playoffs.  For those of you too young to remember, Dave “the Hammer” Schultz, one of the biggest goons and greatest enforcers of all time, beat the snot out of Dale Rolfe while the rest of Rolfe’s Ranger teammates watch Dale take the beat down.

http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/sports/1996/11/03/1996-11-03_beaten_rolfe_not_sore.html

It was one of the darkest and most embarrassing days in Ranger History. It cemented the idea,  for the next twenty years, that the Rangers were the pussiest team in the NHL. It signaled to other teams that they could run Ranger skill players at will. The Rangers notoriously would not stand up for each other. Until Messier, Kocur and Graves and the rest of what became the ‘94 Cup team came along, this indictment proved true.

After the gradual demise of the 94 team (the exit of  Messier to Vancouver), the mercenaries brought in by Sather failed to stand up for themselves, no less anyone else. The Rangers went seven season without making the playoffs. After the lockout, players like Kaparaitis and Strudwick brought a little heart and snarl back to the team. But, you didn’t see  any Ranger deliberately retaliate against goonery until Brendan Shanahan’s main bout at center ice with, of all people, Donald Brashear (who was then a Cap but once was a Philadelphia Flyer).

In a move that stunned and angered the fan base, Glen Sather sign a two year, $1.4  million dollar contract with free agent Donald Brashear on July 1. Fan favorite Colton Orr signed for four years with Toronto at $1 million per year.  How could Sather sign the player that hit Blair Betts during the playoff, breaking his orbital bone.

Brashear was suspended for 6 games and Betts was gone for the rest of the playoffs.  Why hire the biggest goon in hockey when we had a perfectly adequate enforcer in Orr?  Apparently, Orr did not inspire fear in Brashear, otherwise Brashear would have thought twice about running Betts. 

In today’s New York Post, Larry Brooks skewers Glen Sather and Ranger management over the recent acquisition of Donald Brashear.

http://www.nypost.com/seven/07052009/sports/rangers/rangersbroke_bond_by_signing_thug_brash_177650.htm

RANGERS BROKE BOND BY SIGNING THUG BRASHEAR

“represents an indelible stain on the family concept preached by head coach John Tortorella. “

“Brashear is no better player than Colton Orr, the enforcer he replaces, despite the propaganda disseminated by the front office. He’s an oafish fourth-liner who will get approximately eight minutes a night and will be expected to inflict serious damage on the opposition. He’ll no doubt be suspended during the season. “

I don’t believe Larry Brooks doubts that Brashear will be just the deterrent the Rangers need to keep tough guys like Pronger (now a Flyer) from taking a run at their talent ( ie, the fragile Marian Gaborik). And, I don’t doubt “the Donald” might be suspended this coming season. I felt the same way about Tortorella when Sather hired him. Sure enough, it came to pass during the playoffs that Tortorella threw the bottle and got suspended. Larry, once again, needed to fill column inches and saw the signing of Brashear as a perfect opportunity to take shots at two people he dislikes,  Sather and Dolan.

To Larry Brooks and those angry Ranger Fans out there I ask, how was what Brashear did to Betts any worse then what Stevens did to Lindros or Kariya? I don’t know Steven’s personal story. Did he have as horrendous a childhood and upbringing as Brashear? Mark Messier wasn’t adverse to putting a well timed elbow into someones noggin. But, Stevens and Messier had skills. Brashear doesn’t. So I guess that made it okay

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/05/01/AR2009050104147.html?sid=ST2009050104383

Brashear hits people and intimidates them. If you are going to try this man in the hockey court of public opiniion, how do Brashear’s offenses stack up against other perps (aforementioned or not)?  Has Brashear ever deliberately and with malice aforethought done to another player what a Bertuzzi or Simon did? Has he done to another player what McSorley did to Brashear himself?

Brashear throws high hits. He intimidates. So have lots of other players over the history of the NHL. But at some points in time, many fans would loved to have had a Stevens or a Bertuzzi or a Messier on their team.

Some Ranger fans are now indignant about Brashear. Other teams players and  fans may not like or respect Brashear but they’ll know when he’s out on the ice. Maybe, for once in a very long time, skill players on the Rangers can breathe a bit easier knowing that Brashear can checkmate other teams goons.

As for Dale Rolfe, the last paragraph of that linked article is very telling:

Rolfe said he has never had a conversation with Schultz in his life, except to say good luck during the handshake after the game. What would he do if he met Schultz now?

“I’d probably have a beer with him,” he said. Asked if there were any hard feelings, Rolfe said, “How could there be hard feelings? The man was doing his job. I was doing my job. It was a game.”

Tom Renney has been the second winning-est coach in Ranger history.   He has coached this franchise back to respectability since 2005. The Rangers have reached the playoffs every season since he took over after a drought of 8 years.

The Rangers are currently10 games over .500. They are in 6th place in the Conference  with 29 games remaining.  His record speaks for itself:

Renney’s Coaching Record 2004 to 2009

Games Coached 318, Wins-162, Loses-96, OTL 40, Playoffs-3

Regardless of what anyone thinks of Renney, Sather is the architect of this team. Sather is the one who signed all these bad contracts. He is the one who should take the fall. We all know he won’t. He’s the Isiah of Hockey.

The Penguins lost 9 games in January. Everyone was saying Therrien had lost that team. He has Crosby, Fleury and Malkin among others. Do the Rangers have these caliber players?  The Penguins lost Hossa and Malone in the off season and Gonchar has been out injured. That’s their excuse. Therrien’s still there.

The Stanley Cup Champions just lost 5 games in a row but no one accused Babcock of losing his team. Babcock’s team is 1000% more talented then these Rangers. Babcock still has his job.

Does Renney have cup finalists on his team like Babcock or Therrien do? We all know that answer. The Rangers, as presently constructed, will  be lucky to make the playoffs.

I still say it’s the players. They didn’t give up last night. They never came to play in the first place. Maybe they are riddled with the flu but the fan base is sick of excuses.

Firing Renneywill make some fans feel better but it won’t turn things around this season. Players need to be moved or waived, starting with Gomez and Redden.

I say make Renney GM and get rid of Sather. Nine years of Sather’s malfeasance is enough.

If Renney is fired, I won’t be renewing my season subscription next year or any year until Sather is gone for good.

What really ticks me off is that the Rangers allowed themselves to be embarrassed again by the Penguins, the lesser team. The Rangers played two decent periods and got blown out in the third for two reasons. Lundqvist’s head was still in Montreal and the Rangers failed to exact pounds of flesh from the Penguins on a night when Crosby was hurting. 

If my team is down 4-1 midway through the third period, I would be telling them to pound the snot out of Crosby, Malkin, Satan and Sykora at every opportunity. When you’re down by three goals, defense first doesn’t matter. Sometimes you’ve gotta just cut your losses and say WTF . They should have started running the opposition’s talent and made them pay every time they touched the puck.

I don’t want to hear any crap like the fluky goal by Sykora, tying the game at 1-1, took the wind out of the Rangers sails. That’s weak BS. The Rangers stopped skating and stopped hitting in the third period and that’s why they lost. Lundqvist had a bad third period. So what. It happens. How many games has he saved for them this season? It’s a team game.

The problem with this team is that they rely on Lundqvist too much. They did not take responsibility for the game individually or as a team. The  entire team let the Penguins walk all over them. I don’t want to hear that they were tired after playing Carolina last night. Carolina wasn’t hitting at all last night. Physically, the Carolina game was a walk in the park . The Rangers coasted to a 3-2 win in a lightly contested game. So, no one should play the “tired card”.

This game was a test of the intestinal fortitude of the Rangers and they failed miserably to a miserable team. How many more times this season will the Rangers let themselves be embarrassed like this?  For God sake, this team needs to man up and go down fighting. They had no edge in the third period tonight. No meanness. No snarl. No discernible passion.

Maybe they do need someone like Avery back to shake them up and get under their skin and the opposition’s skin.  After watching this debacle tonight, maybe they should just cut their loses, concede Saturday’s game in Boston and save themselves and everyone else the grief of seeing them get their butts kicked again.

All this said, I would rather watch the Rangers win a “boring” game then watch them get their asses handed to them by Cindy Crosby and Crue.

The Rangers out hit, out faced off, out fought, out goaltended, out penalty killed, out powerplayed and out hustled the Penguins tonight. This was their best game of the season. And yet, I still am reading message boards with the vindictive, bitter ravings of a lunatic fringe out there who attribute this victory to some perceived notion that it was a “walk in the park” against the slumping Penguins.

Please. Although the Penguins may be slumping, they are still the Penguins, with CryBaby Crosby, Genie Malkin and MA Fleury and the refs of this league in their pocket. The geniuses on Versus attribute the decline of the Penguins to the loss of Sergei Gonchar. I think these guys are hitting the same bong their tech crew was hitting tonight that caused the HD feed to black out. Versus must be owned by Disney because it continues to prove itself to be a Mickey Mouse network.

The Rangers held the Penguins off the boards despite ice-tilting by the referees in what I would characterize as one of the most brutally called games all season. These refs were embarrassingly trying to turn the game around for the Poster Boy and his buddies. Weak calls on the Rangers and no call on the Penguins. Shameful. Great job by the Rangers to kill all those penalties. Despite the bogus calls on the Rangers, Renney remained his usual controlled self. Those who want Renney gone would prefer to see a hot head like Tortorella behind the bench throwing folding chairs and cursing.

All of this aside, the biggest question one must ask oneself is, Why don’t the Rangers play like this all the time? They had 2 powerplay goals on 8 opportunities. (25%). They won 100% of their face offs, 8 for 8, on the powerplay. They even had a shorthanded goal when they were down 6 on 4. Does that Shorthanded goal expunge 2 of the 12 shorthanded goals previously scored against them. It damn well should.

Looks like every player bought into the “system” and that the “system” worked tonight. How is that? I thought this coach had lost this team. I though that this team had turned Renney off, that they weren’t buying in to his game plan. Did every single Ranger on the ice somehow have an epiphany tonight? Was every single Ranger suddenly blinded by the light like St. Paul on the road to Damascus?

Why can’t the Rangers play like this all the time? I am not saying that the coaching staff is perfect, far from it. But when the players execute the game plan, they win. When one sees a complete turn around like tonight, it clearly demonstrates that winning and losing is in the hands of the players themselves. The coaches and training staff can do their best to ensure the team has every advantage. But, at the end of the day, it’s up to the players  to play like they know they can and they will win.

I’ll shut up now and savor the two points. I encourage everyone to do the same.

Let’s Go Rangers

Last night I was a guest on the New York Hockey Talk Radio Program.  Have a listen here:

http://www.nyhockeytalk.com/

Download here:

http://sportsradiony.hipcast.com/download/0f1ec7a3-3c02-f498-94d1-cbe23ce13609.mp3