Following both Sunday’s practice and yesterday’s morning skate, head coach John Tortorella declared his intention to lean heavily on his top forwards, stating that he believed it vital to, “show confidence in and really focus on our top guys to get them going.”
Last night, Tortorella practiced what he preached.
Oh, did he ever.
Because with Brandon Dubinsky rejoining the lineup and thus joining Marian Gaborik, Christopher Higgins, Vinny Prospal, Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan as the top six, Tortorella gave those players an astounding 75.3-percent of the minutes available to forwards-75 percent!-in last night’s 3-2 Garden shootout defeat to the Thrashers.
Gaborik led the way with 28:19 while Higgins got 25:14, Dubinsky 24:06, Callahan 23:35, Prospal 21:25 and Drury, who did not get on the power play, 18:34.
Those six forwards thus accounted for 140:58 while Ales Kotalik (6:17 up front), Sean Avery (12:14), Artem Anisimov (9:55), Brian Boyle (5:14), Donald Brashear (4:54) and Enver Lisin (4:18) got an aggregate 46:14.
Meanwhile, freshman defenseman Ilkka Heikkinen played a grand total of 7:24 on 12 shifts, including one shift of 28 seconds in the third period. This follows Saturday’s match against the Sabres in which Heikkinen played a total of 8:04, including two shifts for 50 seconds in the third.
It’s difficult to imagine the Rangers going into the back-to-back, home-and-home with the Islanders that commences at the Garden tomorrow night with five defensemen the coach trusts.
Matt Gilroy, meanwhile, had three assists with a minus-one rating in three weekend games with the AHL Wolf Pack. Mark Messier scouted Gilroy, who was sent to the minors in order to work on his, “compete level,” on Sunday.
“We’re getting daily information on Gilly,” Tortorella said. “I’m not going to share the reports, but he is improving. It’s a matter of consistency.”
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Dubinsky failed to get a shot on net in his first game since sustaining a broken hand blocking a shot in Calgary on Nov. 7, but he brought pace, grit and energy to the match.
“The first two or three shifts I might have been tentative, but after getting through the first few battles, it felt great,” said No. 17. “I worked really hard and the coaches worked me really hard so I wouldn’t be a step behind, and I wasn’t.”
“He gave us some juice, didn’t he?” Tortorella asked rhetorically. “It was good to have him back. He was an important guy for us.”
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Henrik Lundqvist has played well enough so that the Blueshirts have been able to earn eight points out of the last 10 games in which the team has scored two goals or fewer (3-5-2), but the goaltender probably should have been able to stop Colby Armstrong’s right wing shorthanded wrist shot that gave Atlanta a 2-1 lead early in the third.
“There was an option in the middle, so that made me a little insecure,” Lundqvist told The Post. “I could have been more aggressive, but it surprised me a little bit; I didn’t play on my toes.”
Armstrong, who eluded Del Zotto after a hard ring-in around the bottom of the boards, beat Lundqvist with a shot that found a hole between the netminder’s right arm and body.
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Blueshirts were magnificent in killing a 1:26 two-man disadvantage in the final six minutes of regulation, using forward tandems of Chris Drury and Ryan Callahan and Dubinsky and Higgins to get the job done…Rangers were 2-for-5 on the PP following Saturday’s 2-for-6 against Buffalo. Thus, 4-for-11 the last two after 1-for- 16 in the previous six and 5-for-39 in the previous 13.
Avery led the team with seven shots while defensemen accounted for 12 of the season-high total of 48…Blueshirts launched 78 attempts while Thrashers had 51 tries, including blocks and those that missed the net.
Rangers, who have lost four straight (0-3-1) at the Garden for the first time since the lockout, are 1-6-1 in their last eight home games. Blueshirts are 1-5-2 in their last eight overall and 7-14-3 since their Oct. 17 victory in Toronto left them with a 7-1 record.
They have the next-to-worst record in the NHL in that eight-week time frame, better than only Carolina (5-16-5) by two points.