THE moment John Tortorella walks through the door of the Rangers locker room today to take command, that will be the end of the excuses and that will be the end of the crutches for a team whose players sure didn’t seem very sorry to see Tom Renney go yesterday.
Once and for all, we’ll find out whether Wade Redden actually has anything left to give or whether he is effectively finished as an NHL defenseman, contract notwithstanding.
We’ll find out whether Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, substantial disappointments this year as leading men, still have it in them to be upper-echelon players or whether their successes in New Jersey and Buffalo, respectively, were simply a result of the systems in which they played and the teammates with whom they combined.
We’ll find out whether Nikolai Zherdev has the ability to become an offensive force or whether he is destined to remain the disappointing tease he’s been the last two months, during which time he has reverted to playing the game one-on-five.
If the final 12 games (2-7-3) of Renney’s otherwise successful four-year run behind the bench represented the players’ silent scream for enforcement of discipline and accountability, Tortorella will be anything but silent in going about his business. Take it from me.
Tortorella is the antithesis of Renney. One is fire, the other is ice. One is four-letter words – Again: take it from me – and the other is complex sentences. One comes off streetwise, the other comes off professorial. One believes in a hockey credo in which, “Safe is death,” and the other lives by the motto, “It’s not what you take, it’s what you leave.”
That doesn’t mean one way is necessarily better than the other, though Tortorella has a 2004 Stanley Cup ring from Tampa to flash and Renney has two career playoff round victories to his credit. It’s not that black and white. Indeed, it’s the same pepper gray as the mustache and beard Tortorella has worn from time to time.
Because keep this in mind. The Rangers under Renney are not only one of three teams in the East (with New Jersey and Ottawa) to have qualified for the playoffs in all three seasons since the lockout, they are the only team in the East to have won at least one playoff round each of the last two years.
This weekend spelled it out. Buffalo on Saturday and Toronto on Sunday were a combined SOS that Glen Sather could not ignore. The Rangers seemed psychologically spent, overwhelmed by tension. They appeared robotic on and off the ice, devoid of emotion, stripped of their confidence, beaten every which way.
As each day passed and as each loss mounted, Renney retreated further and further into himself, digging in on the principles that had made him a success in his first three full seasons behind the bench. He was loyal to his players, who this time turned out to be less than loyal to him.
Renney’s great strength was not merely his loyalty to his players, it was the ability to coach distinct, unique and strong personalities Jaromir Jagr, Sean Avery and Brendan Shanahan. But when they left the building and were replaced by low-key homogenous people, Renney’s strength was no longer a match for his personnel. This team couldn’t run itself.
Now we’ll learn whether the team’s personnel is a match for Tortorella. Will this move behind the bench be enough to rouse the Rangers? Maybe and maybe not.
But it won’t be boring. And it won’t be quiet.
The players wanted a change. They got one. Oh, did they get one.