Two summers ago, the Rangers remade their team to trade for Rick Nash, the finisher management believed was all that stood between the 2011-12 regular season Eastern Conference champions and their manifest destiny of winning a Stanley Cup.
This summer, the Rangers fired a safety-obsessed coach in John Tortorella and replaced him with Alain Vigneault, late of the freewheeling Canucks, in order to install an attack-oriented philosophy (and instill an attack-oriented psychology).
Now, Nash is down with a concussion for an indefinite period that is expected to extend for a while, and for all of the changes, for all of the remodeling, for all of the transformation, the Rangers cannot score.
The Blueshirts have been shut out three times in seven games since Nash went down in San Jose three weeks ago, the latest coming Monday night in a downer of a 2-0 defeat to the Canadiens in the long-awaited home opener at the Garden that left everyone in the oh so fancy building waiting for more … Or waiting for something.
“It was one of the most frustrating games I’ve ever been involved in,” Brad Richards told The Post after the Blueshirts slipped to 3-7. “It was pretty much dead, neither team could get much going, there were whistles all over, and we just couldn’t get anything going other than a couple of opportunities.
“That’s not good enough for us. We have to manufacture chances, we have to work for them, we have to get to the front of the net and sustain some pressure. With the personnel we have no other choice except to play that way.”
The cavalry isn’t riding to the rescue here. Honestly, other than Vinny Prospal, who becomes more attractive by the scoreless period, there’s no one out there for the Rangers to scoop up who can scoop up loose change around the net.
Carl Hagelin, who is eligible to come off the long-term injury list for Tuesday’s game at the Coliseum against the Islanders in an early “Has the Worm Turned?” rivalry match, will add pace but it would be folly to expect the winger’s insertion into the lineup is the cure to what ails an offense that has scored 15 goals in 10 games.
It’s true. The uneven officiating in this one did not exactly even out. There was a mighty questionable roughing call against Brian Boyle that created the power play on which Tomas Plekanec gave the Habs a 1-0 lead at 16:34 of the second period off a brilliant five-man play.
There was a bizarre interference call against Chris Kreider for not moving out of the way of a pair of Montreal players who collided at the Canadiens’ blue line and thus opened up the alley for a Derick Brassard power-play breakaway before it was whistled down at 5:37 of the third.
“The ref told me that the ice belongs to the defensemen,” Richards said, relaying the gist of his conversation with referee Dave Jackson.
“There’s nothing like that in the rule book.
“They made the call because two of their guys collided and fell.”
That nullified chance was the best the Blueshirts could do on a power play that went 0-for-5 and is 3-for-29 on the season while playing five-on-four. Earlier, the power play was generating momentum even when it failed to score. Lately, it is generating frustration.
If there were pent-up emotion in the building, it was all but impossible to detect. The amenities are great, even if they come at a price, but that’s life for the 21st Century sports fan. The cost of comfort and of a choice of draught beers includes the loss of a rowdy atmosphere that for so long marked the old place. This isn’t unique to the Garden, of course. A trip to 161st Street in the Bronx is enough to demonstrate that.
This, though, doesn’t excuse the Rangers.
“There has to be more urgency,” said Boyle, who skated between Taylor Pyatt and Derek Dorsett. “Our line has to spark something; we’ve got to bang, we’ve got to establish ourselves.
“It’s not enough to finish a shift, even. We have to have the attitude where we go out to make the difference. That goes for every one of us.”
So no Nash. No Ryan Callahan. No goals. New Garden. Not a new problem.