Rangers: Vetoed by the Senators
Beware of Lemaire
Posted on Monday, March 23, 2009 at 9:30 AMJacques Lemaire has a history of trying to unnerve the Rangers and on Tuesday night he'll have an opportunity to put another hurt on them at The Garden.
Not that the Blueshirts need any more wounds after the 2-1 loss administered by Ottawa at MSG on Sunday.
Minnesota, emerging from a terrific triumph of its own on Sunday, will have erstwhile Ranger-killer Marian Gaborik -- remember that five-goal game against New York in St. Paul last year? -- back in the lineup, as if John Tortorella needs any more anxiety on his mind.
Torts got enough of a headache from an astonishingly revived Senators sextet -- winners of nine of its last ten -- backed handsomely by goalie Alex Auld (3-0-2 vs. Rangers) who produced 28 saves of which a bunch came late in the third frame.
Down 1-0, Ottawa rebounded on goals from Mike Comrie in the second and Ryan Shannon early in the third.
For a time it appeared as if a double-dip win was in the cards after the Blueshirts had beaten Buffalo on Saturday.
Even better, Brandon Dubinsky broke a 24-game scoreless "schneid" to put New York ahead in the first with an adroit assist from Ryan (Never Quit) Callahan. At that point Auld appeared eminently beat-able.
There could be no quarrel with the Rangers perseverance either. Sean Avery was front and center with yet another admirable offensive game. He worked on a line with Scott Gomez and Nik Zherdev but the red lights lacked batteries for them on this night.
A last-minute Avery wraparound in the third period was foiled by Auld; not to mention an apparent open net shot from about five feet in front by Nik Antropov which was foiled by defenseman Chris Phillips' skate. The Rangers power play went zilch-for-six and, brother did that ever hurt, as The Great Gabbo duly noted.
"We have to bear down as a group and start capitalizing on opportunities," says Avery. "But we're not going to win every game. Now we just have to get back track for the Wild."
If anything was weak about the Blueshirts' game it was a failure to sustain a forecheck against the hard-driving visitors who now have a 15-6-3 record since Craig Hartsburg was canned as coach, replaced by Cory Clouston.
The loss was especially difficult for Henny Lundqvist who kept the prolific Dan Alfredsson-Dany Heatley-Jason Spezza unit off the scoresheet despite the trio's numerous thrusts.
"We played all right against Ottawa," asserts Lundqvist. "They played smart and hard. Their record has been really good lately. We tried our best."
Tortorella must now go back to the drawing board if for no other reason than playoff-seekers such as Florida -- and, yes, maybe even rarely-losing Ottawa -- remain in the coach's rear view mirror.
Certainly, Torts couldn't complain about his club's effort in the second of back-to-back home tests. But with yet another such challenge on the way it's imperative that he fix the suddenly-ailing power play.
"We started okay against Ottawa," says the coach. "As for the power play, it's a matter of scoring at a key time and we didn't do that. When you get to the third period and it's a 1-1 game, you have to try and grind it out."
"I'm not going to over-analyze; it's not always pretty. We just got to go back against Minnesota and try to win a game."
For the Rangers, the road to the post-season sometimes seems more like a tank trap with drill sergeant Tortorella desperately trying to steer his troops clear of danger.
And with the ever dangerous Lemaire coming to town, the song for his coaching foe has to be that old standby, "Beware, brother, beware!"
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