ANAHEIM, Calif. — Three games. A minute sample size. A counter-productive training camp schedule. An unorthodox schedule to open the season. A pair of key players not yet in game shape.
We get it.
And yet, the 9-2 humiliation in San Jose on Tuesday that represented one of the worst beatdowns in recent franchise history means the clock is ticking on this team and this season.
Already.
The Rangers waved the white flag before the second period was 10 minutes old. They were spectators to their own grisly demise, passengers on a sinking ship and surely a disgrace to the sweater.
They were the Washington Generals to the Sharks’ Tomas “Meadowlark” Hertl.
It was one game, one out of 82, but what that one game — that one disgraceful game — unmistakably means is the next few weeks will become a referendum on this team’s ability to respond to the freedoms it has been granted by this coach.
Similarly, even as the Rangers have six more on the road — beginning Thursday night against the Ducks — before they get home to the Garden, this month will also serve as a referendum on Alain Vigneault’s ability to get his points and his system across before the season descends into chaos.
Again, we know. It was one game. But no Rangers team has been so casual, so careless, so utterly miserable, since that 10-2 loss in Dallas on Jan. 6, 2009 that was the beginning of the end for Tom Renney, fired 17 days later.
“The closest thing to this that I’ve been a part of was Dallas, and I think this was much worse,” Marc Staal said following Tuesday’s debacle. “We were so far behind all night long, it wasn’t even close.”
Would-be defenders were gliding all over the ice. The Rangers picked and chose their battles, and almost always opted not to engage.
You know what it was like? It was like the 9-1 loss in Ottawa on Feb. 24, 2004 — that’s right, 2004 — in Jaromir Jagr’s first game as a Ranger, after which Bobby Holik said, “I think, fundamentally, we are the worst team in the National Hockey League.”
That’s what it was like.
The elephant in the room, of course, is actually in Vancouver. The Rangers fired John Tortorella because the players and organization believed his style on the ice had become too restrictive and his style off the ice too domineering.
Well, after a lousy training camp, a lousy opening game in Phoenix and this monstrosity in San Jose, the burden of proof is on the Rangers to prove they can respond to Vigneault’s alternate approach.
It is up to them to prove they can handle the responsibilities that accompany freedom.
You want to say they’re neither big enough nor fast enough to contend for a Stanley Cup? Fair enough. They aren’t. But that’s no excuse for a deficient work ethic.
Dan Girardi has been miserable and so has Michael Del Zotto. Ryan McDonagh was almost unbelievably bad in San Jose. John Moore’s start explains why the Blue Jackets were willing to trade him. The Derick Brassard-Mats Zuccarello-Benoit Pouliot line is way too cute for its own good. Dominic Moore has been dreadful at times. Derek Stepan doesn’t appear ready.
And Henrik Lundqvist hasn’t been himself, pretty much since the beginning of training camp. Is it fair to wonder whether the inability to complete negotiations on a contract has had an effect on him? Sure it is.
Management is essentially worrying about how effective their franchise player is going to be in 2020-21. Are you kidding me? The Rangers have won once going on 74 years and they’re concerned about Lundqvist’s cap hit seven years down the road?
We’re told by an individual who knows Vigneault very well the coach will address the Rangers’ issues with a stern hand behind closed doors; that he will take an unemotional, tactical approach to correcting the Rangers’ problems.
If the team fails to respond, well, they’re not firing another coach, that’s for sure.
When Tortorella left — when, as he said a couple of weeks ago, he was told to leave — he took almost all of the Rangers’ identity with him.
Rangers: shot-blocking. Rangers: the maniac behind the bench whose interaction with the media devolved into spectacle.
Now, there is a vacuum. Nothingness. Now, there is San Jose on Tuesday night.