When Wayne Gretzky returned last night to the Garden in an official capacity for the first time since his April 18, 1999 Great Goodbye, the Phoenix head coach would have been excused for wondering if he had been caught in a time warp.
Because the Rangers who were on the ice last night played every bit as miserably as the Rangers of The Great One’s final season, that 1998-99 club that finished 33-38-11 and missed the playoffs.
This was a Night of the Living Dead performance by the Blueshirts, who lost a 5-1 game to the Coyotes that was never competitive.
This was a miserable exhibition. The athletes appeared lazy in addition to careless. Head coach Tom Renney made a series of curious decisions. And GM Glen Sather left his team shorthanded in nets by refusing to recall Al Montoya to back-up Stephen Valiquette even with Henrik Lundqvist suffering from the flu.
The Rangers aren’t just enmeshed in a 1-4-1 slide over the last two weeks, during which they have surrendered four goals or more five times after allowing that many only twice in their first 26 matches. For other than a 10-game stretch from Oct. 29-Nov. 17 in which they were 9-1, the Rangers are a collective 7-12-3.
The Blueshirts don’t appear to have the ability or fiber to overcome average goaltending, let alone the insufficient work they received yesterday from Valiquette, who went the distance even after it became obvious very early in the second period that, a) it wasn’t his night; and, b) his team needed an emotional jumpstart.
But Renney had no option because Montoya was with the AHL Wolf Pack rather than on the Rangers’ bench, even as the coach had said before the match, “I sure hope we don’t have to use Hank.”
What would have happened if Valiquette had gotten hurt? Why didn’t Sather provide insurance? The GM does not suffer questions from the press, so who knows?
Beginning with the Dec. 3, 4-0 loss to Carolina, opponents who have applied hard forecheck pressure on the Rangers defense have been gifted and re-gifted with pucks off turnovers. Michal Rozsival’s unfortunate play continued yesterday. Marc Staal had a tough time, and the Dan Girardi-Fedor Tyutin tandem had another sub-standard contest.
Not that the forwards, who are so deep in their own end when they get the puck that they have trouble navigating out of the zone, and whose thoughtless dump-ins that allow the opposition easy outs, are off the hook.
When Renney was asked how many Rangers have played to expectations the last two weeks, he said, “three,” without naming names.
One would be Brendan Shanahan, who wasn’t much yesterday, another would likely be Scott Gomez, who was blah, and the third is likely either Girardi or Blair Betts.
If Renney is not to blame for the defeat – he wore shoes, not skates – his decisions were odd at best, starting with the call to reunite Rozsival with Marek Malik (back after three straight scratches) in deference to Jaromir Jagr. The decision to play rookie call-ups Nigel Dawes and Greg Moore on the struggling Chris Drury’s flanks rather than moving Drury up to the wing with Gomez and Shanahan was bizarre, too.
The Rangers have issues. They’re still in a playoff spot, but are no more than another bad week away from slipping to 11th place. It was Night of the Living Dead on Broadway; also known as Wayne’s World.
Coyotes 5 Rangers 1