While more than 100 organized Glen Sather haters gathered on Seventh Avenue looked about ready to slit their wrists over the mediocre state of their team, John Tortorella tried to open a vein in the Rangers’ stone.
“Honestly, let’s call a spade a spade, our top guys were no-shows and it can’t happen at this time of year,” the coach said 20 hours off a 2-0 shutout defeat in Washington, four hours from a 2-1 home overtime loss to Buffalo.
“Listen, they are good people. Erik [Christensen] is put in a spot here he hasn’t been in a long time. He’s a No. 1 center right now, and he has to try to handle that responsibility. He has had some good games for us, but it can’t be the inconsistent roller coaster.
“He certainly wasn’t the only one on that line, it was all three of them [Marian Gaborik and Vinnie Prospal] as far as I’m concerned. At this time of year, your best players have to be able to do more things than they did last night in a very winnable game.”
Then the Rangers went out and, in another very winnable game, showed again that two-thirds of the first line is not made up of first-line players. To transform them, Tortorella needs not a cattle prod, but a magic wand.
Gaborik, trying to play on a partially healed groin, challenged to either promise the coach he had more to give than he did in Washington or put on his street clothes, picked it up some last night. But Christensen, who has failed with three previous teams, was no better, and Prospal, a journeyman, continues to show no signs of regeneration from the long Olympic break.
Olli Jokinen, not spared by Tortorella in his criticism, and playing on a line with Sean Avery and Artem Anisimov that was the Rangers’ best in the third period, assisted on Brandon Dubinsky’s power-play goal that tied the game with 1:23 remaining. And the Rangers got it to the overtime because Ryan Callahan’s burst from the off wing drew a Jochen Hecht slash and because Dubinsky got to the net to put in a Michael Del Zotto rebound.
To the rescue of a precious point came guys who have to score as often, if not more, than the bogus first-liners. And the failure to get two points spoke to Ranger inadequacies that have far less to do with effort than with the paucity of talent collected by a GM who has spent almost to the cap.
Where have you gone, Sean Avery, the one who not only affected an attitude change that turned around the 2006-07 season but chipped in important goals? Whatever became of the Chris Drury who scored 30 and 37 goals in his final two seasons in Buffalo and won’t even make 20 this year?
It’s the committee that has to step up, not one guy or four. Otherwise, Henrik Lundqvist will have to average less than two goals per game in the next 16 games — same as the last two — to get the Rangers into the postseason. They have just one top player, and he is trying to play hurt.