Penguins4
Rangers1
The time is coming, and almost certainly sooner rather than later, for serious changes on the roster. It won’t be long before waiver deals, buy-outs and demotions become Ranger keywords. At least it shouldn’t be long, that’s for sure.
Because it must be sadly obvious to Glen Sather and Ron Low, even if the season is only three weeks and nine games, uh, old. The overdone bunch left so cleverly behind by Neil Smith cannot compete on any meaningful NHL level. It is imperative that this team become younger and hungrier and in as much of a hurry as possible.
The Blueshirts were trounced 4-1 last night by the Penguins at the Garden, thus sustaining their fourth straight loss and sixth in seven games-and fourth straight at home-since the Mark Messier-injected adrenaline produced a pair of victories right out of the gate.
For the first time since the home opener when Messier’s return dominated the atmosphere, there was no subway baseball to distract the audience. The fans understood what they were seeing, booing the Rangers off the ice after a first period in which they fell behind 3-0. Through their five games on Broadway, the Rangers have yet to score a first-period goal while surrendering seven. In their last five games overall, the Rangers have been outscored 7-0 in the first period.
“I’m concerned, but not as concerned as befuddled,” said Low, who mixed and matched different line combinations and defense pairings from start to finish in a frantic attempt to find the right mix. “I do not understand these starts, at all.”
In addition to the 3-6 record the team will carry into tomorrow night’s Garden match against Mike Keenan’s Bruins, there may well be a situation brewing with Theo Fleury, cited by Low for taking a stupid offensive zone slashing penalty with 2:43 to play and the Rangers, down by 3-1, desperately trying to come back and steal at least a point.
“We talked to Theo the other day about offensive zone penalties and all I can say is that it’s going to end up costing him ice time,” Low said. “We’re going to look at this very seriously; we have to get the message across, whether it’s taking him out of the lineup or reducing ice time. We can’t keep doing this.”
Apprised of Low’s comments, Fleury strode out the locker room back door, refusing to answer questions.
Johan Holmqvist was in nets last night, called upon by Low to make his NHL debut because the doctors wouldn’t clear Mike Richter to play back-to-back and because Kirk McLean’s back seized up on him yesterday morning. Twice in the match, penalties taken by Tim Taylor-otherwise fine-and Sylvain Lefebvre-moved to the left with Kim Johnsson after struggling through eight games on Brian Leetch’s right-put the Blueshirts two men down.
It was unbelievable that the Rangers fell behind again by 3-0 in the first at home, just as they had on Tuesday against the Flyers. It was unbelievable, after picturesque goals scored by Jaromir Jagr, Martin Straka and Alexei Kovalev, that it took a Messier fight with Darius Kasparitis early in the second to lift his team’s energy level. Messier, who’d been confronted by Bob Boughner and Matthew Barnaby in the first without a teammate coming to his aid dropped his gloves after he and Kasparaitis had exchanged forearms and elbows, and then pounded the Pittsburgh defenseman with right hands.
“Mark changed the game around right there,” said Low. “But we shouldn’t have to have that from him in order to ignite us.”