Fffffffuuuuuuuuuuuu

It's getting ridiculous. Once again, we manage to play an entire game from behind, even when we score first. This time, we outshot the Wild fucking 41-19 (they didn't get a shot at all in the first 17:17) but still lost 3-1 (no, I'm not ready to throw Hank under a bus just yet, but the numbers do say that that's a save percentage of .842, to Jose "yes, he's still around" Theodore's .976). This was yet another incredibly frustrating loss.

At the risk of petitions (you know, from my countless readership) to rename this little Slice of Internet "Play Sean Avery," we really need to talk. Our only goal of the game went to The Artist Formerly Known As The Grate One, 3:13 into the first. He was rewarded for this effort with 7:07 of ice time throughout the remainder of the game, almost 3 and a half minutes less than any other Ranger. A whole 1:37 of this came in the third - in fact, Avery was given a total of only 3:49 once we were trailing - and none whatsoever came on the power play (if it can be called that), which went an unsurprising 0-for-4 in 8 full, uninterrupted minutes of shitty.

WHY? Seriously, a cookie to anyone who can give me a theoretically reasonable explanation for Avery's astoundingly limited ice time. For real, I will mail you a goddamn cookie if you can explain this to me rationally.

To clarify: playing Sean Avery is not the answer to all of our problems, which are many and mounting. All I'm saying is that it would fucking help. Those problems, by the way, are finally taking shape in the standings, for those of you who haven't been paying attention. With Carolina's win over Buffalo last night (yes, of course it went to overtime, so it was a 3-point game), we've officially slipped into 8th. Meanwhile, Montréal (whom it's becoming a joke to keep in the conversation about our standings) and Toronto both won as well. And they all still have games-in-hand over us. Let me spell this out for you:

6. Montréal, 77 pts, 17 GR
7. Carolina, 71 pts, 17 GR
8. NEW YORK RANGERS, 70 pts, 16 GR
---------------
9. Buffalo, 68 pts, 19 GR
10. Toronto, 67 pts, 17 GR
11. Atlanta, 63 pts, 17 GR
12. New Jersey, 60 pts, 19 GR

Yes, I'm including the Devils on this list. Guess what. If they win their 3 games in hand on us, they will be 4 points behind us. Two games. You don't think they can win two more games than we do down the stretch? Wake up call time.

So there's the reality of the situation. The playoffs, still considered a pretty sure thing as recently as a couple of weeks ago, are more and more in doubt every day. We've still only won two non-shootout games since January 19 (we've played 18 since then). Two points up-for-grabs last night: we got none. Four points up-for-grabs this weekend: two from Ottawa tonight, two from the Flyers on Sunday afternoon. Could we please start winning some goddamn games?