Following the 3-2 defeat in Detroit on Monday that stretched the Rangers’ losing streak to five games (0-4-1), John Tortorella said that it’s his responsibility as the coach to let the players know how they’re doing.
He’s right, of course, but beyond that — and critically at this stage of the season in which the Rangers have fallen into an extended dip, winning just seven of 18 (7-9-2) in the calendar year — it is up to Tortorella to find the way to get the best out of Marian Gaborik the rest of the way in what now appears will be a grind to the finish to make the playoffs.
And from Henrik Lundqvist, too, for that matter.
Tortorella has pushed and prodded Gaborik. He’s cajoled and benched the team’s lone singular talent. The coach has moved people on and off his line, even shifting Brandon Dubinsky from left wing to center on Gaborik’s unit for the third period on Monday, a move the coach had vowed he would not make. But nothing has worked.
And again, for the third straight game, the coach reduced Gaborik’s ice, limiting him to fewer than 15 minutes for the second consecutive match after pulling him from a late third-period power play three games ago at the Garden when the Rangers were pressing for a tying goal against the Devils.
It’s been a tough-love approach pretty much all along from Tortorella. He has never quite called out Gaborik and has not been disrespectful by any means, but has made his disappointment with the sniper quite clear, suggesting that he help himself rather than rely on his linemates’ aid, suggesting that the skater become more of a grinder, the strings player become a member of the percussion group, if you will.
The frustration is understandable even as no one around the team can quite understand how Gaborik, such a dynamic player, could possibly be in the midst of a season in which he has scored in only nine games.
Minimizing Gaborik’s minutes has yielded diminishing returns. At this point, with Gaborik’s issues burgeoning into a story that has begun to overwhelm the team, it’s time for Tortorella to give Gaborik as much ice as he can handle, to double-shift him whenever the opportunity arises, to get him out on the power play for extended shifts.
Though Tortorella has not called out Gaborik, he did famously call out Lundqvist after last week’s loss to the Devils at the Garden, announcing that the team had not even gotten “decent” play from their franchise goaltender over a stretch of three straight games.
It hasn’t stopped there either, with Tortorella going out of his way to reference Lundqvist’s “struggles” in explaining why he gave Marty Biron a second straight start on Monday.
It’s likely no coincidence that the first salvo was fired a night after Lundqvist was photographed with Justin Bieber and Chris Rock on celebrity row at a Knicks game. The inference can be drawn that the coach was unhappy with the goaltender’s preparation. Remember how before last season Tortorella expressed concern that Lundqvist was stretched too thin by off-ice appearances.
The message has been given and most certainly received by Lundqvist, who has been as grumpy the past few days as at any time through his six-year tenure. The message has been given and most certainly received by Gaborik, whose body language has begun to betray mounting frustration.
Now it’s time for the coach to switch gears. Now it’s time to give Lundqvist and Gaborik, the team’s two thoroughbreds, their leads.
Tortorella has a well-earned reputation as a coach who rides his horses. It’s time for him to mount up on Gaborik and Lundqvist.