The lesson to be learned from the Rangers’ 4-2 defeat to Chicago at Madison Square Garden on Thursday, in which the Blackhawks’ Operation Rolling Thunder produced four goals in the opening 9:38, is not so much to be ready from the start, but to understand what it means when the first-place bull’s-eye replaces the logo on the sweater.
“The Blackhawks are a proud team, they’d lost nine in a row, and there’s no doubt in my mind they were hyper-motivated to break that streak against the first-place team,” Brad Richards told The Post. “We have to realize that we’re probably going to face that same type of scenario from here on out, especially against teams battling to make the playoffs.
“For what we’ve done so far and where we are, teams are going to want to come in here and knock us off. We have to expect that and be prepared for that the rest of the season.”
The Rangers should be prepared for a circus — or is that, curious? — atmosphere tomorrow night with Columbus in town and Rick Nash scheduled to make an appearance at the Garden clad in either a Blue Jacket or a Blueshirt, the smart, uh, money on the former.
It will be an odd situation and a potential distraction for the Rangers, who have not lost two straight in regulation since the week leading into Thanksgiving and have done so only twice this season. The Rangers have not lost two straight in regulation at the Garden this season.
If the Rangers’ inability to cope with the Blackhawks out of the gate was out of character, their response was entirely in character. Indeed, once the second period began, it seemed as if the Rangers were one score away from igniting a comeback victory even when they were four or three goals down.
“We didn’t give up and we believed until the final buzzer that it could go either way,” Richards said after the attempt to rally was undercut by an 0-for-7 (on 11:51) night on the power play. “But that’s no surprise; we’re not that kind of team.
“I’ve been here long enough to see the character and work ethic of this team. We just have to understand what we’re facing as we go forward.
“I’m confident that we’ll learn from this.”
Wojtek Wolski is carrying a cap hit of $20,541 per day. Since coming off Injured Reserve on Jan. 6, Wolski has chewed up $903,809 of space while playing 28:30 in three games (Jan. 12-15 while Brandon Dubinsky was sidelined) that equates to $31,712.60 of cap space a minute.
The Rangers, who are in search of a mobile, puck-moving defenseman, had no interest in Hal Gill, who went from Montreal to Nashville yesterday, and are not believed interested in reuniting Tampa Bay’s 2004 Cup-winning Pavel Kubina with coach John Tortorella.