KAREL Rachunek became the latest guy the Rangers can’t afford to miss, not returning for the second period with an MCL sprain that put the Rangers down to five defensemen, including two rookies. A team back in the playoff picture on mojo and Motrin was all over the Senators in the first period before another of the Rangers’ dreaded 2-0 leads turned into a 3-2 deficit.
A club described by its coach as having a “back end on fumes” needed a quick fill-up, not of resolve, or of sense of energy, or any of those easy conclusions to reach when leads continue to be hard to keep. The Rangers, in their seventh straight one-goal game, four of which they had won despite not scoring more than three goals in any of them, needed an easy goal for a change and Ottawa’s Dean McAmmond tried to bail them out, getting called for hooking.
Opportunity knocked, for a power play easily knocked, and even easier currently to defend. “Shoot the Puck!” chanted the fans, but all the Rangers managed on Senators’ goalie Ray Emery was a side-of-the net jam by Brandon Dubinsky. They had better pressure in the final minute, with Henrik Lundqvist pulled, than they did during that power play.
The Rangers lost in regulation for the first time in their last nine, a winning pace that should get them into the playoffs, provided the grinding pace they have had to maintain does not exhaust them first. They went to the net with impressive zeal early last night, jumped up 2-0 on two rebound goals by Michael Nylander, and lost the game on two deflections, although one of them by Marek Malik again, wasn’t particularly bright. But, just like in Pittsburgh Saturday, they put themselves in position to get unlucky by not turning 2-0 into 3-0.
The Rangers made the Senators take two restraining penalties in the first period, then made it too simple for Ottawa to kill them, just as good an explanation for this loss, ultimately, as any self-fulfilling prophesy from these recurring blown 2-0 leads. The power play is 2-for-its-last 28 in 49:52 of power play time which makes the Rangers four wins in the five games that preceded this one semi-miraculous.
“Opponents overplay Jaromir, obviously,” said Renney. And with what Wade Redden and Chris Phillips know about how reliant upon Jagr his team is, why wouldn’t they?
The Rangers chased two power-play goals to win at Uniondale six days ago, accounting for those lone successes in those last 28, reminding them how energizing the power-play goal can be. Obviously, the second unit, nominally more productive than the first one lately, is suffering the loss of triggerman Brendan Shanahan. Paul Mara, and Rachunek, its two point men, have not been afraid to shoot. But Jagr’s unit is being chocked by its European upbringing. “We have been able to convince them at times to put more pucks to the net, but it’s innate (in Europeans) to make the perfect play instead of pounding away, scratching and clawing,” said Renney.
“I don’t have problems with the creative thinking of any player. But a shot from 40 feet on a bad angle isn’t necessarily the best play but it creates something. We have to concentrate on getting chances, the bigger issue.”
He might try taking some guys from the second unit and putting them on the first. You would never guess the Rangers’ power play was actually ranked eighth in efficiency coming into this game, so you would never say that goals wont eventually come.
But they had better start arriving soon. These games are too hard to win without goals with the man-advantage, and it caught up to the Rangers last night.