In the Boston Globe, Dan Shaughnessy writes that New York is not a hockey town and that he has been in the City since Monday and has felt no buzz for this Rangers team.
He says that is “impossible” to have a hockey culture in NY because the people didn’t grow up “breathing Zamboni fumes” and that in terms of hockey towns, New York can never be Toronto, Detroit or Boston.
Shaughnessy writes “When Mark Messier and friends won their Cup in 1994, the Rangers lost that special something that the Red Sox had prior to winning in 2004. They ceased to be the “long-suffering” Rangers. They became just another team. If not for their proximity to Penn Station, the Rangers might just as well be the New York Islanders.”
Some of his other notes about how NY isn’t a hockey town:
- The media horde covering the Knicks/Celtics was twice as big as the media covering Rangers/Bruins
- The media is spending much more time covering the end of the Knicks season/offseason and getting excuses from “overrated ball hog Carmelo Anthony.”
- Jaromir Jagr was outside of MSG and “seemed” to go unnoticed. “Think this would happen if Jason Kidd stood on 33rd Street hailing a cab?”
- The Rangers don’t pull in as many celebrities as the Knicks do. When the Knicks were playing the Celtics “The Garden was a place to be seen.”
- The only star player they have is Henrik Lundqvist
Yesterday, Pierre McGuire was on TSN Radio and spoke about the Rangers current situation and the questions they will need to answer when their season ends.
McGuire said that a major debrief will need to take place when the Rangers season ends and the following questions need to be answered:
- Why is their power play anemic?
- Why have they had this inconsistency when it comes to offense?
- Do they need to change some of their core players?
- Should Brad Richards be a New York Ranger next year or should they use an amnesty buyout?
McGuire said that these are questions that needed to be answered whether the Rangers win or lose against the Bruins.
He adds that offense is too much of a struggle for the Rangers and that Henrik Lundqvist isn’t getting any younger but they just keep relying on him to save the day for them.
On the series against the Bruins, McGuire said that Boston is just a better team.
John Tortorella said on Wednesday that believes the Rangers are working hard but being down 0-3 in a series has necessitated a siutation where the Rangers need to reach a level of more desperation.
He added “I like our team. We have good people. We need to have more people playing more minutes consistently. I like the team.We will be ready to play and I hope we get to another level of desperation. That isn’t about running around, it’s about winning those neutral zone battles and turn the territorial game around.”
Tortorella said that there is no reason for any of his players to feel pressure and he wants/hopes to see some of his guys grab hold of the opportunity to play and let the game come to them.
Earlier today on TSN Radio, Bob McKenzie was asked about Brad Richards.
McKenzie said, “I wouldn’t be surprised if they used a compliance buyout on him this summer, but that was a risk they took when they signed him. No one was suggesting at the time that Richards was done, but the amount of money and years they gave him certainly gave pause to wonder if they had overdone it. As far as Richards/Tortorella, of all the guys on the team, Brad Richards knew what he was getting into. In fact the reason he signed with the Rangers was because Tortorella was there. This is the one guy on the team who wanted to hook up with John Tortorella no questions asked because of their past in Tampa Bay. I don’t think you can blame Brad Richards performance on Torts, that is on Brad Richards.”
Richards had one shot last night and played 8:10. He had five shifts in the first period, for a total of 4:28, and then had a combined five shifts in the final two periods.
In the NY Post, Larry Brooks writes that the Rangers wanted Brad Richards because of how he plays it cool in big moments, but that Richards game is in “such a state of utter disrepair” that looking back seems only seems to taunt everyone involved.
The Vancouver Canucks have announced that Alain Vigneault has been relieved of his coaching duties.
Vigneault has been the coach of the Canucks since 2006 and made the playoffs in every year but 2008.
He only got past the second round once, 2011, when the Canucks lost in seven games to the Bruins in the Stanley Cup final.
The Canucks were swept out of the first round this year in the playoffs by San Jose and lost in five games, as the number one seed, in the first round to LA last year.
Pierre LeBrun tweets “Vigneault is a great coach, one of the very best in the business. He’ll have success elsewhere. No question”
Earlier today, following Rangers practice, Mats Zuccarello was asked if he felt there was any quit with the Rangers.
Zuccarello told Andrew Gross, “Absolutely not. We’re going to fight them to the bitter end. Hopefully, we can win four straight.”
He added, “we have to stay positive, believe in each other, believe in our system, we need to put the puck in the net…it’s as easy as that. If we score more goals than them we are going to win.”
In the Rangers 2-1 loss to the Bruins last night, Brian Boyle took 21 faceoffs and won 4 of them.
Boyle was 2 for 13 on defensive zone draws and told Katie Strang, at ESPN NY, “we were in our own zone for way too long because I couldn’t win a friggin’ draw.”
Boyle added that it was “infuriating” that in the biggest game of the year he didn’t play better.
He played 19:41 and had five hits in the game.
SNY.tv recapr takes a look at how the media reacted to the Rangers’ 0-3 series deficit vs. the Bruins.
In less than two minutes, recapr covers the media’s reaction to New York’s sports stories, pulling together multiple angles and viewpoints – from Twitter to text to talk radio – giving you the whole story in one place.
In 2010, the Flyers came back from being down 0-3 to beat the Bruins in a second round series.
Darroll Powe was a member of the Flyers on the team that came back against Boston and spoke today about that series.
Powe said “you go in everyday and focus at the game at hand. You can’t win four games tomorrow night. We need to focus on coming out strong, going shift by shift and chipping away. You win every shift and that is how you get back into the series.”
Powe added that things start to change when you win one and start to see your confidence build while the opposition starts to see their confidence wane.
Arron Asham was also on the 2010 Flyers.
