When was it exactly that the people making the personnel decisions for the Rangers came to the conclusion that size and strength are not necessary attributes for a team to thrive over the course of an 82-game season?
The contrast is striking every night, when the Blueshirt smurfs try to get to the front of the net against (much) larger defensemen while enemy attackers flood Henrik Lundqvist’s crease without meaningful opposition from players who are either too small to make a statement or too meek to matter.
It is imperative that GM Glen Sather acquire big bodies who will use them, even if it means sacrificing some of the skill level that coach John Tortorella covets in his athletes.
But then, there is no point in Sather acquiring these people if Tortorella won’t give them the chance to establish something, and, no, four-to-six minutes of ice time a game does not qualify as getting an opportunity.
Nearly halfway through the season, it is impossible to tell whether Donald Brashear can play at all. This much, however, is certain: Brashear, who is just over a week away from his 38th birthday, cannot possibly contribute by getting five or six brief turns a game.
No 38-year-old, let alone one at 6-foot-3, 235, can be expected to sit for eight, 10, 12, 15 minutes at a time and then be able to find his legs when called upon.
The Rangers don’t so much owe it to Brashear to find out whether he has anything left in his repertoire of villainy — he was not hired to dangle — but to themselves, given that No. 87 is on an over-35 contract that means that his $1.4M for next year will be applied against the cap even if he is waived to the minors, bought out, or retires.
Fourth-line players cannot be afterthoughts. Jaromir Jagr knew that when, during the magical sleigh ride through the winter of 2005-06, he consistently cited the Dominic Moore-Jed Ortmeyer-Ryan Hollweg unit as, “the best fourth line in the league and that I ever played with,” as a key to the Blueshirts’ success.
Tortorella is zealous in his belief that you score and win by riding your top players. It worked with the Lightning. Of course at Tampa Bay, he could construct a Brad Richards-Vincent Lecavalier-Martin St. Louis top unit that could just as easily have been the NHL’s first all-star team.
It is essential for Tortorella to establish a structure and construct defined lines with identities and roles, rather than switch combinations every six minutes. Tortorella likes to label himself a “spontaneous” coach, but the Rangers need more definition and less impulse.
Marian Gaborik does not need Brandon Dubinsky as his center. Vinny Prospal is just fine there if accompanied by a left wing who stays out of the way, much as Brad Isbister did for Jagr and Michael Nylander.
But the Rangers need Dubinsky between Ryan Callahan and Sean Avery on a forechecking, crash-the-net second line. Chris Drury and Christopher Higgins could then form a third-line combination. The Rangers would at least present a pretense of depth under this scenario.
Tortorella’s method of creating offense isn’t working. The Rangers cannot consistently score more than two goals a game with the coach’s over-dependence on the cream that rises to the top of a bottle that is half empty — the half that on any given night doesn’t have a role and doesn’t get the chance to contribute.