The phrase was invented in the mid ’70s after a number of Rangers scored huge contracts following the advent of the WHA and the Blueshirts grew stale under Emile Francis.
It was revived in the late ’90s when a flock of mercenaries landed in New York during the Dark Ages featuring seven straight failures to make the playoffs leading into the 2004-05 canceled season.
“Fat cats,” the Rangers were called. “Fat cats.”
No one has used the expression to describe these Rangers, but the Blueshirts’ players came pretty darn close to defining themselves in that damning manner after a desultory performance in their 4-1 defeat to the Capitals at the Garden that was immediately followed by a team meeting of approximately 15 minutes.
“This has got to change. We can’t just go through the motions, win a game, lose a game, and hope [other teams] do something for us, and life is good,” Brad Richards said after the Blueshirts pleaded Nolo Contendere against the Caps and neophyte netminder Philipp Grubauer.
“You dig yourself into these situations, sometimes it’s going to take some time or it’s going to take something to get you out of it,” the alternate captain said. “We’re going to have to get a little uncomfortable here and get out of our comfort zone.
“We are just floating along, and it’s getting old.”
Richards was not calling for a personnel shake-up, he made that clear when directly asked by The Post, but the onus is on general manager Glen Sather to do something to shake up the Blueshirts, and sooner rather than later.
“Personnel decisions are up to management, I’m not saying we need a change there, that’s not my department,” Richards said. “It’s up to the players to wake each other up.
“The coach can only do so much no matter who it is or what team it is. It comes from within the locker room,” he told The Post. “We’re obviously way too comfortable. There was no passion out there.”
Coach Alain Vigneault referred twice to “the personnel we have now.” The personnel could change by Monday afternoon, if not by Tuesday night when the Predators come to the Garden, for the Blueshirts clearly need an infusion of energy.
The Rangers’ held a little meeting following last Monday’s 5-2 home defeat to the Jets in which they affirmed that .500 hockey, in the words of many, “would not cut it.” In the three games since, they have gone 1-1-1 in a trio of lackluster efforts, with this defeat representing a baseline of lethargy.
They are soft as tissue paper and with definition to match. If they’re not the easiest team in the league against which to play, they are sure in the conversation. The Rangers, 6-7-1 in the last 14 and 15-15-1 overall, are relevant in the standings only because of the league’s cockamamie playoff structure that rewards mediocre outfits such as this one.
“Our effort was not acceptable and our work ethic is not good enough,” Rick Nash, no factor at all in either Saturday’s overtime defeat to the Devils or this debacle, told The Post.
“For a team that’s desperate for wins, we’re not playing with the desperation we should,” he said. “It’s on us, the guys in the room, but there needs to be urgency.
“We need to finish our body-checks. We need to outwork teams and we’re not doing that. It can’t go on this way.”
Sunday’s match was scoreless into the second period before the Caps scored twice in a 25-second span at 2:28 and 2:53. There was essentially no response from the Rangers, who were passive and careless in all three zones in falling behind 3-0 when Mikhail Grabovski beat Henrik Lundqvist on a penalty-shot slap shot at 18:26, awarded on a call equally as deficient as the Rangers’ effort.
The Blueshirts resembled cadavers in a third-period during which the Caps toyed with the home team, adding a fourth goal before the Rangers spoiled the 22-year-old Grubauer’s bid for a shutout in his second NHL career start — and first this season — with under two minutes to go.
The buzzer sounded, the players convened to hold a meeting that did not impress Vigneault in the least.
“You can talk all you want; you have to have those words become actions on the ice and the right kind of actions,” he said. “You can talk all you want behind closed doors, but it’s the 200-by-85 that games are decided.”