âHoney, the water is about to boil over!â
âThatâs weird; thereâs hardly any flame under itâ¦â
And thatâs what I hear coming out of Rangers country after this recent winless Western Canada trip. Fans and media, in eager anticipation of a long-awaited mug of Green Tea, are thinking something must be done in order to save the prospect of their precious dream. Fire Renney! Trade Jagr! Sather is incompetent!
In reality, and in the Rangers locker room, itâs nothing to panic about. They played every game of the road trip hard and didnât look outclassed for any extended period of time. What killed them were small mental lapses; a bad goal, a bad penalty call, a missed opportunity and thenâ¦kaput, the entire momentum of a game is gone.
Yet, just like the momentum of a game, the momentum of a season can vanish in a heartbeat. And nothing makes New York fans (over)react like a season that seems to be slipping away. And thatâs just as it should be.
What the Rangers and their fans alike need is a fire â any sort of fire â under their proverbial pot. They need a spark to get them going on a long winning streak, like when they won 9 out of 10 from Oct. 29 to Nov. 17. Then everyone was talking about how this team could not be denied The Cup with all their talent. Get the white gloves out, Lord Stanley is coming back to the Big Apple!
But they keep making mistakes that cost themselves games. This team is not far from being an elite squad. Theyâre not that far from competing with the Ottawaâs and the New Jerseyâsâ¦but, theyâre not there yet.
So, does something need to be done to get them there? I donât think it does. The spark doesn’t have to be something viable the fans can point to in years to come. It can be something small, like a goal off an opposing defenseman to win a crucial game, or a deflection off a skate that beats DiPietro in overtime, or a weird bounce off the corner to hand-deliver a goal to sleeping offensive powerhouse like Prucha.
I donât think any player has to be traded, I donât think the coach has to go, and I donât think they need to start playing in a different fashion. (Maybe if everyone started playing a little harder every shift – ahem, Jagr – I wouldn’t complain). I think if they keep doing what theyâre doing, theyâre going to break through. And if that leaves me a cock-eyed optimist with a pot of cold water on my stove, well so be it.
bcyrgalis@nypost.com
