With last night's 3-1 loss in Washington, the Rangers have now lost 3 of their last 4 games (the only bright spot being a 5-2 win over the Lightning, who they're now 3-0 against after that weird start to the schedule in Prague), bringing their record to 11-5-1. 23 points in 17 games sounds impressive enough at first glance, but what it really means is that they started 5-0 and have gone just 6-5-1 since then. They've mostly been playing the bottom half of the league so far (5 of their 17 games have been against Tampa Bay and Toronto, after all!) which means things are only going to get harder. They're still barely holding onto 1st place in the Eastern Conference (largely on the strength of having played more games than anyone else) but have already been passed by San Jose for 1st overall (the Sharks are an amazing 13-2-0, and 9-0-0 at home!).
It's sad to see such a great start squandered, but they really do seem to be sputtering. Anyone who bought into delusions of grandeur for this season - and trust me, I wasn't one of them! - should by now be re-thinking their position. As always, my hope is simply that they make the playoffs, and then give it their best shot with the other 15 Cup hopefuls.
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2 comments:
You're too hard on your Blueshirts...
Lets look at some positives;
1. Nikolai Zherdev is a plus-player with the Rangers. The Russian who was a -52 in four seasons with Columbus, is +11 and leading the NHL in Manhattan.
2. Chris Drury is finally playing like the leader the Rangers expected.
3. Massive Back-up Goaltender Stephen Valiquette (6'6") is fitting in well, and could be considered a starter on 50% of NHL teams today.
Soo... can you start picking it up on Tuesday?
:-)
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