NHL

Western Woes Begin

Depending on how you watch hockey, tonight’s 4-3 loss in Calgary may have been an easy game to watch, or one that explains the ulcers and high blood pressure of die-hard Rangers fans.

It was a classic turn-off-early game once the Flames’ Kristian Huselius made a couple unbelievable moves to set up Jarome Iginla for a gimme goal to make 3-1 in the third. I heard it all over fair-weather land: “Ugh, 9:00 start. Now it’s late, I don’t know anyone on this other team and…well…it had to be Malik who blew it again.”

Of course, for the rest of us, we had to endure the Rangers not giving up. For all their inadequacies, this team as a whole does not like to lose. Dubinsky played his tail off all night and got his well-deserved fourth goal of the season, bringing the score back to 3-2 with about four minutes left. Rumblings coming from Bleeding Blue country: “Ehh, it’s never easy with you guys, is it?”

Then there was a strange occurrence: King Henrik had a mental lapse. He let up a terrible-angle shot to Huselius to put the Flames up 4-2 and make the game look out of reach. “But wait, Tom, you’re not…you’re not calling a time out, are you? Pulling the goalie? Well, I guess I’ll keep the light on for a little bit longer.”

Scrum in front, Gomez finds an open Shanahan, 4-3. “Hank, that goal! That angle! Two plus years you haven’t given up a goal that bad…Ah!”

The final 14 seconds tick off, Rangers lose. And so begins the Western road trip. Upon closer inspection here, I want to point to two comparisons between these clubs that I think explain tonight’s result. Let’s start with the respective captains, Jarome Iginla and Jaromir Jagr.

There was one play where each of these outstanding hockey players were on the ice that I think personified their efforts tonight. Third period, the score 2-1, the Rangers have all the momentum in the world after peppering Flames goalie Mikka Kiprusoff to end the second period. They come out skating hard for the first five minutes of the third and Jagr, winded, is looking to get off the ice. He kind of runs into Iginla trying to get the puck in deep, but Iginla holds him up. The Flames captain retrieves the puck, outlets it Huselius, hustles down the ice and puts in the aforementioned third goal. Jagr was lazy, Iginla was playing two ways and the difference between the two burned the Rangers.

Now I know it’s possible to defend Jagr and the way he has played lately – he is in the midst of an 8-game scoring streak where he has put up 14 points (including 2 assists tonight). But what it is to wear the ‘C’ for a team is more than putting up points. Again, not to say Jagr isn’t a team player, because he is. But he has to show heart every second of every shift, just like Jarome Iginla did tonight, if he wants to lead this team anywhere into the spring. Hey, maybe he’s just not a leader?

The second comparison is between top defenseman. Scoring his tenth goal tonight, I guess (amid a feeling of snubbing towards Dan Girardi) that Michal Roszival is the top defenseman on this team. But after seeing someone like Dion Phaneuf play such a complete game – big hits, not a single defensive lapse and an assist on Iginla’s powerplay goal in the second – it’s hard not to dream about the Rangers with someone of his ilk. Obviously, everyone in the league could use someone like Phaneuf, but his impact, and the lack of a complete defenseman like him on the Rangers, was quite glaring tonight. (Okay, okay…there’s your forum to rip on Malik some more. And not that I need to add fuel to an already out-of-control fire, but man, he looked like Frankenstein out there tonight. His back has to be killing him and it shows. A couple times he had it behind the net and I would have bet money he was going to put it off Lundqvist and in.)

Like I said before, sometimes this team is agonizing to watch. The more you have invested in them, the tougher it is to watch a loss like this one.

It makes me think of the Premio Italian Sausage commercial that runs on the radio during Rangers games. “Two Premios and a beer, please,” the radio character asks the Garden concession. Well, with the way this team tortures us day in and day out, I say keep the sausage and give me three beers.

bcyrgalis@nypost.com