A Return To The Madness

I think I've done a pretty good job over the past 2 months of ignoring the misadventures of the New York Rangers. As I wrote about here, they'd pushed me past my breaking point this season with their inconsistent play and inability to score goals. For the first half of the season, they'd over-achieved somewhat (at least within the standings) thanks to a schedule that had them always a few games further along than anyone else and some occasionally-impressive success at protecting one-goal leads in low-scoring games. Somewhere around December or January, though, both of those advantages began to disappear and I finally gave up on them when they surrendered 6 goals in a single 20-minute period in a game against the Dallas Stars in early February.

Since then, I've mostly managed to keep my mind off the team that I've followed since I was 10 years old. Every once in a while I'd hear something about them and be unable to resist the urge to check out how they were doing. For example, Boneman informed me in March that coach Tom Renney had been fired - a move that I had to applaud, given some of the performances this year - and so, for a couple of days, I kept watch to see who would take over. I was happy to hear that John Tortorella was brought in, but the team welcomed him with back-to-back 2-1 losses to the Leafs and Panthers (neither of them exactly a powerhouse). At that time it was becoming apparent that the Rangers would have to pick up their game considerably or risk missing the playoffs for the first time in 4 years, and that was one train wreck that I had no stomach for watching. So I went back to periodic, sporadic check-ins surrounded by long stretches of thinking about other things.

This past Thursday, Boneman (him again!) told me that the Eastern Conference playoff lineup could potentially be settled that night, which definitely piqued my curiosity and indicated that it was probably time to uncover my eyes. When I got back from doing my Agile Project Management presentation, I decided to catch up. As luck would have it, the evening's game between the Rangers and Flyers had just finished, and the hometown Blueshirts had eked out a 2-1 win to clinch a trip to the postseason. Not long after, the Habs took the Bruins to overtime, and that was enough to put Montreal in, meaning that the 8 Eastern teams were now decided (although some positioning is still up for grabs). Considering that it was the Rangers' 2nd last game of the season, this was something of a bittersweet development for a team that lead the league for the first month and was in the top half of their conference for the first half of the season. Beggers can't be choosers, though, and so they get at least one round of playoffs for their troubles.

In reviewing their season over the course of yesterday and today (and with one more game tomorrow, in Philadelphia, before the season's complete), I noted a few points of interest in addition to anything I've posted previously:

• Somehow, Sean Avery landed back in a Rangers jersey. I don't begin to understand that development, and I'm left with the same feeling of unease about his being there as I've had for the past 2 seasons.
  
• Across the 3 home-and-home series they had with Western Conference teams, there were no splits! Dallas swept them (including that fateful 10-2 result that sent me packing), whereas the Rangers swept both Anaheim and Chicago. Ironically, the Stars didn't make the playoffs this season, whereas the two teams that the Rangers dominated will join them in the postseason!
• I believe the only Eastern Conference team that the Rangers swept were the Lightning, and I didn't notice any Eastern team that New York failed to get at least one win against (though it's possible I missed one). They did manage to win 5 of 6 against the (admittedly, pretty terrible) Islanders, and I'll take that result against their hated cross-town rivals any year! On the flip side, they lost 3 of 4 to the lowly Leafs and probably handed Toronto as many points as any team in the league!
• The Rangers will finish 7th in the East if Montreal doesn't do better than them in the two teams' final, respective games. The Habs host the Penguins tonight, and so the Rangers will know what - if anything - is required of them tomorrow afternoon if they're to grab the 7th spot in Philadelphia.
  
• The Rangers will play either the Bruins (if they finish 8th) or the Capitals (if they finish 7th), starting Wed or Thu this week. Both teams held the advantage in the seasonal series, with Boston getting 5 points (compared to 4 by the Rangers, as the teams each won 2) and the Caps winning 3 of 4.
• With a respectable home record and a sub-0.500 road mark, the Rangers will unfortunately have to start on the road and win at least one away from MSG if they expect to get past the opening round. The only way they'd have home advantage to start any series would be if they finished 7th and faced the 8th place Canadiens in the 3rd round!
• In 21 of their (so far) 81 games, the Rangers scored 1 or fewer goals. That's right: in more than a quarter of their games, they were held to a single goal or less! And you wonder why I was frustrated with their output!
• By the same token, in 21 of their (so far) 81 games, the Rangers held their opponents to 1 or fewer goals. While those weren't the same two sets of games, they did take part in a few 1-0 games (including 2 losses to the Bruins).
• Speaking of Boneman's Bruins: all 4 games between NYR and BOS were 1-goal differentials (4-3, 3-2, 1-0, 1-0).
• And speaking of 1-goal differentials: the Rangers have already seen more than half of their season's games end that way (42 so far), with them winning 23 of them, losing 10 in regulation and 9 in either O/T or Shootout. That +13 in wins vs regulation losses across 1-goal games means that they actually played below 0.500 in games decided by more than a single goal (19-20) to date! (Put another way: 55 of their 93 pts came that way.) That's perhaps the most shocking stat of anything I've seen.

I think Tortorella's a better coach for that team than Renney was, although it's probably too early to call. In 61 games this season under Renney, the team was 31-23-7. Over his first 20 games behind the bench, Tortorella saw them post a 11-7-2 record going into tomorrow's final game. Considering that he inherited all of the problems that Renney hadn't dealt with, and that the team went 11-6-1 after his first 2 games, I'm hoping for better things when Torts has a full season to work with.

So, with the baseball season having started last week, I was going to be watching more sports nowadays anyway. I'm not about to expect much from the Rangers in the 2009 Playoffs - although it's nice that they're in! - but maybe the Jays, with their 5-1 start, can make some noise come September and October!

And, to the ever-patient and indulgent Shane, Boneman and AgileBoy: yes, this means the embargo is over for another year. Now what is it that you were always so desperate to tell me, anyway?