THE suburban team, last season an eighth seed in the playoffs, couldn’t keep Jason Blake and Ryan Smyth and 76 goals between them. This season, the Islanders throw effort, discipline and hacked pieces of rubber into the grinder and stay quite competitive averaging 2.43 goals per game, thank you Rick DiPietro.
Legend has had it, this season the urban team added two big-name, free agent centers, Scott Gomez and Chris Drury, to a lineup already containing Jaromir Jagr, recently the most dynamic player in the game. But 14-9-2 and Henrik Lundqvist’s 1.82 goals-against average notwithstanding, the Rangers’ – who headed into last night’s match with 53 goals in 24 games – most-celebrated grinding has been of their teeth at their inability to score.
The Islanders, with a $42-million budget and lower expectations, can go on like this. But the Rangers, who have the talent to be a top-three seed in the East, really can’t afford to be this offensively inept. Their stars have to star. Even Lundqvist, who two weeks ago said he was taking it as a personal challenge to win games 2-1, if necessary, recently has been questioning the absence of offense.
Last night at the Garden, the Rangers got those extra two goals, and not coincidentally, a first win in four tries over the Islanders, 4-2. They did this by doing not only the little things that have sustained them, but adding big things from their big guys.
Jagr, freed by a Brandon Dubinsky runoff of Brendan Witt, busted off the wing and fired through a screened DiPietro. Drury whisked in a Dan Girardi power-play rebound, then kept another alive to feed Gomez before Dubinsky finished off a gorgeous tick-tack-toe from Martin Straka and Jagr to put away the most satisfying win of the season.
The Rangers have paid a capped-out $50.8 million and have more good player than the Islanders. It finally showed.
Drury has terrific skills, but received $35-plus million over five years for his relentless drive, which frankly, had relented since his signing. After last night’s goal and assist, Rangers fans got to see Drury at his best.
“We can’t undervalue his work habits, professionalism and his ability to persevere,” Tom Renney said. “Those are the things that made him such a great player.”
Drury knows it, too, which can become part of the problem as players get the big bucks in the big city and forget what they were hired to do.
“New team, new surroundings, all-new everything,” Drury said of joining the Rangers. “I’ve just been trying to get acclimated.”
Comfortable is the operative word. The definition of coaching is putting players in positions, where they have the best chance to succeed. The great parts of the Rangers’ power play came into last night with a 13.9-percent success rate, a summary failure with Drury manning a point.
“I feel better in front of the net,” he said, which was obvious as he lifted the stick of the hulking Andy Sutton and fed Gomez.
Obvious, too, finally, was the Rangers have better players than the Islanders, and last night they were getting what they paid for.