IT IS an accepted sports adage that teams play the way they practice. Never has this been proven more true than by the Rangers, who approach games the way they do practices. As if they are optional.
Jam this one into the ever-expanding Believe It or Not file the Blueshirts have compiled over the last six seasons: Yesterday, one day after their humiliating 3-1 Garden loss to a replacement team wearing Pittsburgh NHL uniforms through which they were jeered with disdain, the Rangers were rewarded with an optional at their luxurious Tarrytown facility. About a dozen players skated for 40 minutes, but there was no instruction. There was no work done. There was no practice.
Having played just two games over the previous seven days and with all of 10, ahem, work days remaining in the season, yesterday became Casual Thursday for the Rangers. Yes, they were all required to present themselves at the rink for a 45-minute video review of the previous night’s folly, but that was it for the day. Of course, it likely would be different if the team needed to win its last five games to have a chance to make the playoffs.
It’s inexplicable, honestly is it, how little Ranger management demands of its labor force. What a gig. No wonder anybody who is (or was) anybody wants to grow up to be a Ranger. What a life.
Really. Can anyone in his wildest dreams imagine the Islanders going through an optional in the aftermath of soiling the sheets the way the Rangers did on Wednesday? Does anyone believe that the Canucks or Wild or Mighty Ducks would have responded to such a defeat in such a manner? Does anyone believe the Red Wings, Avalanche, Devils or Stars – winners of the last eight Cups – would have been advised to enjoy the day?
Glen Sather explained the approach by saying that the team has a number of players with nagging injuries and that in his opinion, putting the club through a bag-skate, no-pucks punishment session would have been counterproductive. He’s correct about the latter, but couldn’t they practice for the sake of trying to get it right for tomorrow afternoon’s game in Boston? Couldn’t they have practiced the power play? Couldn’t they have at least tried to construct a single competent power-play unit and work with it? Or is 1-for-27 over eight games considered adequate and not in need of improvement?
The Rangers don’t practice particularly hard. They haven’t all year. Early, with a rookie coach, it was because of a demanding schedule. Now with a veteran, four-time-Cup-winning coach, who knows? If, however, their regimen is a product of having so many older players, all the more urgency, then, to slide some young legs and hard bodies onto the roster next season, no matter name-recognition.
Hockey’s different here, all right. It’s hockey through the looking glass. There’s such a loss of perspective here about what’s an acceptable work ethic. It’s amazing, or maybe it’s just a maze. The experience of becoming a Ranger seems to subvert reasoned hockey principle. The organization and team are league-wide laughingstocks. Nights like Wednesday are the reason why.
Or maybe it’s days like yesterday.
Maybe it’s Casual Thursday.
Maybe it’s providing jobs where working at them is optional.
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Sather said that he expected Mike Dunham, who practiced for the first time since sustaining a hamstring pull last Saturday, to play against the Bruins . . . Pavel Bure skated, but the winger again said there’s no change in the condition of his right knee. Said Sather: “I don’t think anybody can say when he’ll be ready to play except for Pavel. When he tells me he’s ready, he’ll play.”
