Coyotes 5
Rangers 0
PHOENIX – This time, resolve wasn’t enough. And this time, there probably wasn’t enough resolve, either.
For in their final match of the calendar year, the Rangers were beaten, and beaten soundly, in every facet of the game from nets out in a 5-0 Coyote rout that snapped the Blueshirts’ three-game win-streak as they head to Edmonton to face the Oilers tomorrow night.
“Not very much good to say about it at all,” said Ron Low. “We weren’t nearly tough enough in front of our own net tonight. That was a huge problem. [The] breakdowns in front were ridiculous.”
The Rangers had been able to win the opening two games of this six-game trip in San Jose and Los Angeles on Friday and Saturday by 5-3 and 5-4, respectively, on superior goaltending and opportunistic scoring despite having been outshot by an aggregate 78-39. But last night, they were unable to overcome glaring errors in their own end, turnovers in the offensive zone, a dreadful night in the faceoff circle and a rare unsteady performance from Mike Richter.
What’s more, and most disturbingly given potential ramifications, Igor Ulanov – who, with Glen Sather desperate to find a buyer for him, remains in the lineup while Tomas Kloucek sits – continued to disintegrate in the glare of the showcase window, and Theo Fleury continued to have serious issues with officials, thrice berating Stephane Auger after penalty calls, drawing two unsportsmanlike conducts and a 10-minute misconduct for his behavior.
The Rangers have to be proactive with No. 14 here, before Fleury’s tantrums escalate to a dangerous level. The emotional winger has been skating on a supplementary discipline tightrope for more than two weeks. Now, there appears no safety net. And they have to get Ulanov out of the lineup.
“We’ll see Kloucek in Edmonton,” Low said. “[Igor] is here to do a job. The physical part of his job is just not there. It can’t keep happening.”
Richter, marvelous in Saturday’s victory, was all over the place last night while uncharacteristically leaving rebounds right in front for the Coyote forwards who were able to drive to the net largely unimpeded.
It’s nights like these that illustrate the importance of Eric Lindros’ absence and Mark Messier’s ailing shoulder. For without their two best faceoff men – Messier, well less than 100 percent, only took penalty-kill defensive draws – the Blueshirts were beaten 33-13 in the circles in the first two periods.
Though the game was scoreless fairly deep into the first, and only 1-0 after the first when Daniel Briere escaped Petr Nedved’s attempt to take him in front at 14:46, the Rangers never seemed their opponents’ equal.
One-nothing became 2-0 at 3:36 when Daymond Langkow beat Ulanov to the net to stuff in a rebound. It became 3-0 just 42 seconds later when Langkow again drove to the net for a rebound to complete a 3-on-2 that followed a Brian Leetch offensive-zone turnover. It became 4-0 when Shane Doan shrugged off Ulanov for a putback at 14:01.
“In the second, we kind of came unraveled. It all got away from us,” said Richter.
