WINNIPEG —Despite the fire coming out of John Tortorella’s mouth after Tuesday’s 3-1 loss to the Sabres in Buffalo, the Rangers coach did not burn the tape, did not call it an aberration, and did not immediately wipe the slate clean.
Instead, in preparation for Thursday night’s matchup against the Jets, Tortorella replayed parts of the video for his team, followed by a spirited practice.
So it was in the wake of anger where the hot-tempered coach found a learning experience.
“It was brought up today pretty extensively, and now we’re done with it,” Tortorella said. “We wanted to get it out of the way, right away.”
The consensus in the locker room was that most of the team had not heard exactly what the coach said after the game, when he went on a 90-second tirade about how he was “not going to give Buffalo any credit” for the win, and how he “couldn’t be more disgusted and disappointed with the way our top guys played.”
The reaction from the players was that those sentiments were not thrown away on the media only, but communicated clearly to everyone who needs to be held accountable.
“It’s called coaching, he’s coaching us,” Brian Boyle said. “What he says to you guys [the media] doesn’t really matter to us. I take what he says to me and what he says to us — it’s how he’s coaching us. That’s how you try to rectify things.
“He’s done it a long time. He knows what he’s doing. We obviously need to be better.”
After winning five of six games and going into Buffalo against a team that had lost four straight, the Rangers (13-10-2) seemed to be lining up another win to keep their four-game road trip a rolling success. But after thoroughly beating the Capitals 4-1 on Sunday, they were sloppy against the Sabres, who managed to take advantage.
“We were all feeling good, but last game was really a step backward,” said Carl Hagelin, now seemingly a solidified fixture on the top line with Rick Nash and Brad Richards. “That’s not the direction we want to go.”
So now it’s on to the Jets (13-11-2), a team tied with the Rangers for the eighth and final playoff spot in the conference and coming off a strong 5-2 win over the Maple Leafs. It’s no easy task in hopes of righting the ship before a difficult matchup against the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Saturday afternoon.
“You have to live in the present in this league,” Hagelin said. “You just need to be ready about the next game, and you can’t think about what happened a week ago.”
* Forward Arron Asham took part in practice for the first time since injuring his back three weeks ago. It was the first time he was on ice since he tested the injury in Montreal on Feb. 23. “It was a little worse than just that,” said Asham. He He will miss his 11th straight game tonight but is hoping for a return next week. “It happens. I wanted to play, but the back just wouldn’t let me. That’s the way it goes.”
At the time he called it back spasms, but now he was a little more honest about the situation.