"The reason they're at the top is not 'cause they're that much better than everybody, they're just that consistent." That was the King's explanation of the conference-leading Devils (I can taste the bile just from typing that phrase), who are taking the quick trip through the Lincoln Tunnel -- no, I guess the Holland now -- to see us tonight at 7. If Lundqvist is right, surely the burden is on the Rangers to stay consistent. But it's hard to hear any message about consistency as one of hope for this team.
The Rangers are resoundingly mediocre this season, looking at a record of 22-17-6 through 45 games. But how did we get here? If you'll forgive my division of the season into 5 specific time periods, we opened the season 7-1 through our first 8. Then, when we finally started losing, we went 1-4-1 in 6 before righting the ship somewhat and playing .500 hockey through the next 10 (5-5). Confidently mediocre, we then stopped battling for pretty much anything and slid for 1-6-2 in 9, since which we have somehow (probably equal parts actually-trying-to-win-games and playing-against-shitty-opponents) been winning consistently, going 8-1-3 in our last 12. Surely if this stretch can be called a "streak," as some Ranger beat writers have been calling it, it's because the Rangers are among the streakiest teams in the league.
What makes a team this streaky? Why can some teams bring the same level of intensity night in and night out, while we just can't seem to, if you'll pardon the phrase, get it up? Call me crazy, but it seems like a symptom of a team that lacks an identity. We've covered in depth how significantly and often our roster changes, and up until recently, we were very bad at bringing up kids from Hartford. Also, our captain, though great at defensive hockey, isn't exactly the fired-up charge-with-your-men type. It's the same root cause that lets Girardi watch a Star flatten and elbow his goalie and stand there and watch. We need to develop a personality.
We also need to develop a backup goalie, incidentally. On Sunday, the Rangers sent Johnson to Hartford to beat the Providence Bruins 2-1 in overtime that night, calling up Matt Zaba to practice with the team yesterday, after which they sent Zaba down and recalled Johnson to back up Lundqvist tonight. Valiquette remained in Hartford, where he will continue to remain. Oh my god find a goalie.
Anyway. Things being as they are, we're riding 8-1-3, and 4-0-2 since losing 6-0 to the Flyers, into tonight's match. And tonight also brings us the triumphant return of everyone's at-least-second-favorite-Vaclav, Vinny Prospal. He's fantastic at hockey, so this *probably* can't be a bad thing, unless Torts does something completely unreasonable with the lines. Tonight's lines haven't been decided yet, but for whatever it's worth, yesterday's lines at practice had Prospal in on the left wing of the top line, leaving Christensen at center and bumping Dubi down to second line left wing, with Drury and Callahan. I love that line. Naturally, this pushed Higgins down to third line right wing (leaving Anisimov and Avery there), and gave us plenty of fourth-liners to play with (Brashear, Voros, Boyle, Lisin, Kotalik). If he goes with these combinations, I'll certainly be happy with the decision.
Oh, and speaking of playing with fourth-liners, after Aaron Voros played two consecutive games, a home-and-home against the worst team in hockey, Torts brought back the thoroughly ineffective Donald Brashear. Asked about the switch back, Torts explained, "I don't want to sit Brash for five straight, and so I'm going to pick and choose some lineups he plays against. But I do want to get A.V. involved." Fine. So, he needed to rotate Voros out to make some room for Brashear (though God knows why), and he wants to keep them both involved. That makes sense.
Since then, Brashear has played in four straight, and Voros has sat in all of them. Does anyone believe Voros will play tonight? I know it's only four games so far, but I'm officially starting the count here. Since Torts said that he wants to rotate Brashear and Voros and keep them both involved, Brashear has played 4 games to Voros's 0. I'll keep counting.
Finally, check out this crazy story. I know it's already painfully obvious from bullshit calls when a referee has a vendetta against a player (remember Stephen Walkom's hosing of Avery over Christmas weekend?), but apparently referee Stephane Auger took things to a whole new level and actually skated over to Alex Burrows pre-game last night and told Burrows he was going to get him back for making him look bad on a hit a few nights ago. That is nuts! I wish it weren't so damn easy to believe...
That's all for now, kids. Go get some work done.
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