The Rangers will pass the quarter-pole with tomorrow night’s match at the Garden against the Caps as a team that’s still attempting to place its stamp on the season.
For through an uneven 11-8-1 start in which a 7-1 getaway has been followed by 4-7-1, the Blueshirts haven’t been the go-go, high-octane club in head coach John Tortorella’s image that might have been projected coming out of camp, warts and all.
What they’ve been, for the most part, is whatever Henrik Lundqvist, Marian Gaborik, Vinny Prospal and the first power play unit have allowed them to be on any given night.
“I think we’ve shown that if we give our best we can be right up there, but that if we don’t it could be tough for us,” said Lundqvist, who was superb throughout Saturday’s 2-1 shootout victory in Ottawa. “It’s good that we’ve seen both sides already.
“We know that we have to be aggressive in order to be successful, but not to the point where we want to be going back and forth and trading two-on-ones all game or all year. That’s not the plan. We’re still learning. We’re still developing an identity. I don’t think we’ve established who we are yet. I don’t think we’ve figured it out. I know that I have to play better. I think our whole team can play better. But I think we’ve seen we can be a very good team when we’re at our best, and that gives us some confidence that we have something to build on.”
The recent injuries to Chris Drury and Brandon Dubinsky have exposed an organizational weakness in depth down the middle — where would these guys be if not for Tampa Bay’s bizarre decision over the summer to buy out the final three years of Prospal’s contract? — but the Rangers hadn’t established themselves before they went down, so that’s not going to serve as an excuse.
“Ask me to assess where we are right now when we haven’t been winning consistently, and to the question of are we where we want to be, the answer is no, basically from the standpoint of forechecking,” Tortorella said yesterday. “Forechecking is a part of the game we have to be better at.
“A big part of our identity is having the puck, and I don’t think we’ve had the puck enough through this last stretch. It’s something we have to improve on. We have to get forwards pressuring the defense the way opposing forwards pressure our defense. We need to keep the puck when we get it and not be worked off of it like we’ve been too often. Our deep forecheck needs to be improved upon. We have to be strong on the puck. It’s not just about having the willingness to battle, it’s about winning the battle and then keeping the puck after the battle.”
The Rangers are hardly the brawniest team in the NHL, but that doesn’t excuse mindless unforced turnovers where players simply pass the puck to no one or changes of possession created by being outworked.
“It’s a matter of willingness not to allow the other team the chance to keep the puck and not to allow the other team to take the puck back away from you,” said Tortorella. “We have to be committed to doing a better job of keeping the puck.
“We’re not consistent enough at that. Because of that, we haven’t spent enough time in the offensive zone. Except for the Atlanta game [a 5-4 defeat on Thursday], I think we’ve defended well, but we’ve spent too much time defending in our own end. So from the standpoint of establishing our game, we haven’t done it yet when it comes to having the puck.”
*
The Rangers are 4-for-30 on the power play over last eight games, scoring in only two of those matches, including their 3-for-7 performance in the Nov. 5, 4-2 victory in Edmonton. They are 18-for-81, at 22.2 percent overall.
The Blueshirts have scored 15 PPG’s while five-on-four. First-unit pointmen Michael Del Zotto and Ales Kotalik have been on for 14. Prospal has been on for 14 up front, while Marian Gaborik has been on for 13 and Ryan Callahan has been on for 12.
The Rangers have placed Drury, who is suffering from intermittent if not severe post-concussion symptoms, on injured reserve. They have made no move yet regarding Dubinsky.
The Rangers could place Dubinsky on the long term injury list and thus gain temporary use of an approximate additional $1.2M of cap space in his absence, but management appears hopeful that Dubinsky will be able to return prior to the 10-game minimum requirement for LTI status.
The 10-game mark would be reached on Dec. 5 in Buffalo, which would be four weeks from the day the center broke a bone in his right hand blocking a shot in Calgary.
*
Tortorella, who went with Gaborik, Kotalik and Prospal to lead off what became a seven-round 3-2 shootout in Ottawa with the winner scored by P.A. Parenteau, said that the three-man top of the order would remain intact.
Kotalik, who scored, is a career 21-for-39 in the skills competition. Only Slava Kozlov (24-for-41) and Jussi Jokinen (24-for-44) have scored more goals in the shootout since the NHL adopted it coming out of the lockout.
Gaborik, who failed on a deke move, is 1-for-13 in his career. He did not shoot in Minnesota’s eight competitions last year. Prospal, who scored out of the three-hole, is a lifetime 5-for-14.