When it was over, when a third-period rally had fallen short and the Rangers had been beaten at The Garden by the poorest team in the East and the poorest road team in the NHL, Tom Renney accurately assessed the Blueshirts’ plight.
“We’ve put ourselves in the position where every second of hockey is crucial to us,” Renney said after last night’s 5-3 loss to the Lightning extended the Rangers’ losing streak to four (0-3-1) and left them teetering on the edge of a playoff position with only five wins in their last 17 games (5-9-3).
Pity, then, that Renney did not coach the game that way.
For on a night that the Rangers played without Martin Straka (concussion) and Sean Avery (broken bone in his right hand) and on which Brendan Shanahan played sparingly on one good knee and one wounded one, Renney spent the first half of the match granting heaping amounts of ice time to the Blair Betts-Ryan Hollweg-Colton Orr checking unit while stapling his marquee Scott Gomez-Jaromir Jagr-Chris Drury unit to the bench.
Jagr, who was flying from the moment he stepped on the ice, gave the Rangers a 1-0 lead at 3:02 of the first against a Tampa Bay team that had lost seven straight overall and had won three games on the road all season. But No. 68 got only four more shifts the remainder of the period, finishing the first with a paltry 5:38 as the Rangers fell behind 2-1.
Jagr had 5:38 – Gomez and Drury, who each had a minute of PK time in the period, had just over 5:00 apiece of even-strength time – while Hollweg was on for 6:39, Betts for 7:19 (including PK time) and Orr for 6:22 as Renney matched against the Vincent Lecavalier-Martin St. Louis-Vinnie Prospal unit.
Instead of stepping on Tampa Bay’s virtual throat, the Rangers let the Lightning up. And though Renney began to parcel his time somewhat more appropriately in a second period in which the Blueshirts fell behind 4-1, it wasn’t until the third that the head coach turned to his horses to save the day.
But it was too late. It was too late, even as each of the three played nearly half the period – the Rangers had 7:26 of power play time in the third – and even as the Blueshirts stormed back to slice the lead to 4-3 on PPG’s by Michal Rozsival and Gomez. It was too late after the Rangers failed on a 1:24, 5-on-3 PP midway through the period and the Lightning eventually sealed it on an empty-netter.
“We tried to match in the first so the checking line played a lot and it was tough to get on the ice,” Jagr said. “When we stopped matching, our line got momentumwithout power play time in the first, there wasn’t much ice time.”
Jagr finished with 22:35, 1:12 less than each of his linemates. It wasn’t enough considering the makeup of the lineup that included Nigel Dawes and Greg Moore. What’s more (or less), Petr Prucha got only 8:13 of ice, less than forward.
“I could have double-shifted Gomez’ line … but we wanted to establish something with Betts’ line, too,” said Renney, who allowed John Tortorella to direct the game from behind the visiting bench. “There’s no question you run the risk of the checking line taking minutes from guys, but that’s a coaching decision and I have no problem with that.”
Now, however, the Rangers have a problem.