Blaming the media is the last refuge for a scoundrel behind the bench, and that is the depth to which Lindy Ruff descended after the Devils’ 5-1 beatdown by the Rangers in their own house Thursday.
New Jersey’s season going nowhere got there fast in that one, in which the club did not score on the power play despite having the man-advantage for 11:52. That represented a continuation of a troubling trend in which the club has gone 2-for-46 on the power play over the previous 14 contests.
After the contest, the coach of this underachieving team — wracked by goaltending issues the hierarchy has permitted to fester all year — suggested reporters had been “exerting excess pressure” on New Jersey’s power-play guys by asking them about their difficulties.
Yes, I can imagine Nico Hischier melting into a puddle upon being asked what the boys need to improve.
As weak as it gets.
So I should tell you that, A) Anaheim’s Frank Vatrano remains very much on the Rangers’ radar and, B) Sell low, buy high on Pavel Buchnevich does not sound like the most optimum strategy to reacquire the winger who scored one goal in 12 playoff games for the Blues in their trip to the tournament two years ago.
This, too: The Chris Kreider-Mika Zibanejad-Buchnevich triumvirate scored at a rate of 2.97 goals per 60:00 over 726 minutes with an expected goal share of 51.3 percent from 2018-19 through 2020-21, per Natural Stat Trick.
Meanwhile, the BFFs scored at a rate of 3.54 goals per 60:00 with Vatrano over 187 minutes down the 2021-22 stretch (and at a rate of 3.24 goals per 60:00 with Blake Wheeler over 314 minutes this season).
From the trade market: Is it possible, as I was told, that the ’Canes have made it known they are willing to listen on Martin Necas, and if that is accurate from a source who has proven to be trustworthy, what am I missing?
If you are Jacob Markstrom, are you sure you’re waiving your no-move clause to come to New Jersey? Perhaps it is Carolina that will be calling.
Is there anyone within the hockey world who is more in need of treatment from the NHL-NHLPA Substance Abuse and Behavioral Health Program than Adam Ruzicka, the 23-year-old Coyotes forward who Friday posted a video to his Instagram account in which he appears with a white powdery substance, a credit card on a plate and a vial in his mouth?
This is a cry for help, wouldn’t you say? The kind of behavior the program is meant to address, correct?
Yet the Coyotes are not sending the winger, whom they picked up on waivers from Calgary in late January, to the program. Nope, instead they have placed Ruzicka on waivers for the purpose of terminating his contract ($762,500) that expires at the end of the season.
Some players get help but others are fired? I don’t think that’s the way the program is supposed to work.
Grounds for contract termination are open to interpretation. The Blackhawks terminated Corey Perry for doing something so terrible and unmentionable in polite company that the league allowed the 38-year-old to sign a contract with the Oilers less than two months later.
Everyone knows how much I love to watch Jack Hughes play, I had him in the Hart conversation each of the past two seasons before his injuries intervened. I am fairly certain that he rushed back too soon from the latest one that sidelined No. 86 for 11 games bridging the All-Star break. He hasn’t looked close to the electrifying athlete we’ve come accustomed to seeing.
But, I am sorry to say, the fact is that anyone paid to watch No. 86 play against the Rangers on Thursday probably should have asked for his/her money back.
I don’t know how or why, but apparently there is an ongoing debate about whether a Penguins organization essentially bereft of young talent should move potential difference-making winger Jake Guentzel for a package of futures to jump a rebuild or should extend the pending free agent to keep the old gang together for another almost certainly failed run.
It would have been like debating whether the Rangers should have extended Rick Nash instead of trading the pending free agent to Boston for a package that directly and indirectly yielded Ryan Lindgren, K’Andre Miller and Ryan Strome.
The original sin was committed by the administration’s universally supported decision that keeping the Sidney Crosby-Evgeni Malkin-Kris Letang trio would guarantee No. 87 his best chance at a fourth Cup despite the fact this core group has not won a playoff round since 2018 and has gone 6-15 in the tournament this decade.
Who knew that Jean-Guy Talbot, who passed at age 91 on Thursday, would have been five decades ahead of his time when he wore a track suit behind the bench as the Rangers’ head coach in the 1977-78 rebuild season in which the club wore those blasted logo sweaters?
Snapshot. Elite Eight: 1. Vancouver; 2. Florida; 3. Rangers; 4. Boston; 5. Colorado; 6. Dallas; 7. Winnipeg; 8. Carolina.
And the Canucks’ season is all the more impressive considering they’ve pulled this off even while Vitali Kravtsov remained at home in Russia.
