The Rangers will be without Sean Avery for up to a month due to the Grade 2 left shoulder separation he sustained taking Chris Neil’s fierce – and legal – high hit 7:23 into Saturday’ 2-0 loss at Ottawa.
That won’t be easy, not with the heavy helping of jam Avery brings to the rink even on nights he might not be terribly effective with the puck – 10 recorded hits in Thursday’s opening 5-2 victory over Florida, for example – but his absence will be easier to accommodate in the short run than a continuing absence of chemistry among Rangers forwards.
It isn’t only Scott Gomez, who appears to have fallen immediate victim to the well known Stephane Quintal Disease, named for the defenseman who lost his game on Broadway by trying to do way too much in order to justify his (comparatively) massive free-agent contract. It isn’t just Jaromir Jagr, who has looked in need of a GPS navigation system on the ice. It isn’t just Brendan Shanahan, whose start to the season has stalled shifting gears.
No, inefficiency and confusion have marked the work of the entire top two lines of forwards, who have struggled to create any flow through two games, and inefficiency and confusion have been the bywords for a power play that’s been impotent in going 0-for-10 in 15:44 against the Panthers and the Senators.
Avery’s absence will cause Tom Renney to reconfigure his team’s look up front prior to the Blueshirts’ match against the Islanders at the Coliseum on Wednesday. Less than a week in, and the head coach will be changing some of that flock of interchangeable parts on the roster.
Marcel Hossa is likely to step in after having been scratched from the first two games, but it’s not clear whether Hossa will replace Avery on the unit with Gomez and Shanahan (probably not); whether Hossa will assume the spot on left wing with Jagr and Chris Drury while the shifty Martin Straka slides down to play with Gomez and Shanahan (possible); whether Hossa will play on a third line with Blair Betts while either Ryan Callahan or Petr Prucha skates with Gomez (doubtful); or whether Renney will overhaul his combinations and team Gomez with Jagr, and Drury with Shanahan, as part of an immediate renovation (hmmm).
Still, the lack of an even-strength attack is far less a concern than the follies on the power play. A year ago, even while preaching a meat-and-potatoes PP philosophy, Renney refused to use shooter Matt Cullen on the point. Now, preaching the same philosophy, Renney has gone with pass-first Straka and Michal Rozsival on the points of the first unit, but still wonders why the puck doesn’t get to the net as often as it should.
Renney’s approach here is as much a mystery as the immediate fall from grace of Paul Mara, who seems to have inherited Darius Kasparaitis’ stall in the team kennel. The Rangers carried Kasparaitis and his $2.989M cap hit on the ledger into last year’s all-star break, but with far less cap space available this time around (approximately $1.8M), the Blueshirts aren’t in position to keep Mara – scratched Saturday in favor of Jason Strudwick – and his $3M cap hit on the roster as a sixth-seventh-eighth defenseman.