SUNRISE, Fla. – The Rangers can take solace if they want in getting three points out of four on this two-game Florida swing that opened with a 2-1 victory in Tampa on Wednesday and concluded with a 3-2 shootout loss to the Panthers here last night.
But the fact of the matter is the Blueshirts aren’t going anywhere with an offense that’s bordering on pathetic.
Steve Valiquette’s brilliance in nets was all that stood between the Rangers and embarrassingly one-sided defeat to a club that was quicker, stronger and hungrier pretty much from beginning to end. The Rangers were outworked most of the night, just as they were outworked in Tuesday’s 2-1 loss at home to the Islanders.
“I’m happy with the road point but I’m not happy with the game,” said coach Tom Renney. “I don’t think we came out prepared to compete and do what was necessary to establish the degree of battle level that was required.”
Beaten in the shootout by only Olli Jokinen in the fifth round while the Rangers went scoreless in their five attempts against Tomas Vokoun, Valiquette made a half-dozen Kingly saves last night, including a pair on short-handed breakaways.
“Without Steve, we would have been done,” said Scott Gomez, who got going in the third after his line was mysteriously short-shifted for most of the opening two periods. “But we’ve come to expect that from both our goaltenders.”
If the Rangers have come to expect excellence from their goaltenders, the rest of the world has come to expect impotence on the attack. Last night’s match marked the 15th time in 23 games the Blueshirts have scored two goals or fewer. Tied 1-1 after two, it also marked the 17th time this season the Rangers were held to none or one through 40 minutes.
A half-step slow and caught in between much of the night, the Blueshirts were fortunate to tie the match 2-2 at 16:10 of the third on Chris Drury’s power-play goal – he got both goals – just two seconds after a five-on-three expired.
“Tom let us know what he was thinking after the second,” said Gomez, who fed Drury for the tying slam-dunk. “He put the challenge to us.”
If the Rangers’ challenge is, in the hockey vernacular, to shoot the puck and score the goal, it is Renney’s challenge to construct lines capable of mounting a sustained attack. The issue will become more complicated if Martin Straka, who returned after missing 15 games with a broken finger, is out again after suffering a hamstring pull that forced him from the match early in the third.
“I’d been skating a lot the last four or five days and maybe my body wasn’t ready,” said Straka. “I didn’t want to make it worse or risk making mistakes that might have cost us the game.
“I don’t think it’s going to be too long; maybe only this game.”
Before going down, Straka not only played with pep, his presence seemed to energize Jaromir Jagr. But both players were reluctant to shoot, each attempting to make one extra and unnecessary pass off the rush. Jagr suffered through his fifth straight game without a point.
And the Rangers are stuck at 2.09 goals-per game, the worst in the NHL.