Defense and discipline were lacking last night for the Rangers in their 5-3 loss to the Thrashers at the Garden.
So were alternatives to Marian Gaborik and Vinny Prospal with top-nine vacancies up front created by Saturday’s injuries to Brandon Dubinsky and Vinny Prospal.
Thus, and partially because coach John Tortorella told front office people early in the week that he preferred not to disrupt the roster with promotions from the AHL Wolf Pack, Prospal played 27:52, including 11:06 in the third, and Gaborik played 26:02, including 11:01 in the final period with the Blueshirts attempting to come from behind.
“I’m not sure what we’re going to do [about the roster],” said Tortorella, whose team is 3-7-1 in the last 11 and plays in Ottawa tomorrow afternoon. “We do have the afternoon game coming up, but our games next week are spread out.
“Do I want to play guys 27, 28 minutes? No, no, I don’t think that’s a great situation but I’m hoping other guys will step up so that they get the minutes. We’ll talk about it [today].”
The Rangers were slow to think and slow to react through most of the first two periods in their first game back from a tour of western Canada that concluded with a flight home on Sunday from Calgary. They were made to look foolish by Atlanta’s dynamic Ilya Kovalchuk-Nik Antropov-Max Afinogenov unit.
Perhaps the Dreaded First Game Back Home Scenario provides a partial explanation for the fire-drill follies on defense, though the team didn’t seek to use it as an excuse.
“A lot of it was what we’ve been talking about all year about communicating,” said Dan Girardi. “It’s not one guy, it’s the whole team.
“It’s our responsibility to be ready at the start, no matter what the situation is with injuries or the schedule. We were outworked a little at the start. There’s no excuse for that.”
Henrik Lundqvist, in nets for the first time since last Monday, was behind 1-0 just 19 seconds into the match, when Evander Kane burned Michal Rozsival wide before setting up Colby Armstrong for a slam-dunk at the right porch after he’d beaten Michael Del Zotto to the net.
Rozsival had a dismal night on the blue line. It’s becoming increasingly difficult to believe that Bobby Sanguinetti isn’t deserving of a shot to unseat Rozsival and his $5M cap hit from the third pair. But we, much like the Rangers defense last night, digress.
Kovalchuk, playing with a cast on his broken right foot in his first game back after missing six, did pretty much whatever he pleased. Sniper Gaborik came close to matching his creativity at the other end. Each of the world-class talents scored one for his team.
But the Blueshirts, who cobbled together second and third lines of modest offensive ability and undetectable chemistry (When will the feds solve the case of identity theft plaguing Sean Avery, by the way?) undermined themselves by picking up six minors that included three offensive zone penalties.
“Once again penalties came into play,” said Ryan Callahan, whose team yielded two PPG’s. “It’s killing us. We have to figure it out.”
As Tortorella and general manager Glen Sather have to figure out if they can get by temporarily without making a move.