Is The End Here for Tom Renney?

I'm sure all Rangers fans are starting to think that his time has come. It certainly sound that way yesterday at MSG when the Rangers were embarrassed by the rival-Flyers and the entire crowd was calling for Tom Renney and Glen Sather's heads. While it's hard to blame front office personnel for poor play on the ice, I think some of this blame needs to go their way.

Sather deserves a lot of the fault for this past off-season. He went out and spent a ton of money and made trades to bring in players like Wade Redden, Dmitri Kalinin, and Nikolai Zherdev along with Scott Gomez and Chris Drury the year before. While getting talent is nice, he didn't get someone who has a nose for the net like Jaromir Jagr did. None of the guys on the team right now are willing to shoot the puck, as evidenced by poor power play after poor power play. Redden was given a ton of money and doesn't move the puck well-enough except when he turns it over. He got talent, but not scoring talent really.

Renney told reporters after yesterday's game that he takes the blame for everything that has happened and said it was he who has to be the one to turn the team around. Renney has made several questionable moves this year. He finally puts in Petr Prucha, not a physical player for the most part and sits Aaron Voros, a physical player, against a team that is traditionally very physical in their game. Renney also doesn't seem like he has a lot of fire in him to yell at players and hold them accountable for mistakes on the ice. If he wants to stick around, he needs to infuse some sort of energy and life into what seems like a completely dead team.

However, with everything that has gone on, the players still deserve a ton of blame for the way they have played. Chris Drury is supposed to be the captain, but he is far from it right now. He doesn't seem to play with the energy and drive for the net like he had in Buffalo. Scott Gomez hasn't provided much and seems almost invisible on the ice at times. I've already mentioned the problems with Redden and Kalinin.

Bottom line is: when you give up a goal while on a 5-on-3 power play, something is clearly wrong. This team doesn't have a will to win or any energy at all. If that doesn't change anytime soon, like with wins against the Blues and Islanders, it's gonna be time for some changes.

Heartbreaker in Boston

A tough week for the Rangers got tougher on Saturday as they lost a 1-0 battle with the Eastern Conference-best Bruins in Boston. Not only did they not get a point, but they also were shut-out by not Tim Thomas and not Manny Fernandez but Tuukka Rask. Rask was making just his fifth NHL appearance. Rask was strong, stopping all 35 shots and the Rangers lost their second in a row after getting pasted by the Penguins earlier this week.

Things also got bad for the Rangers when Dmitri Kalinin went down with a knee injury in the first period and did not return. Now, Ranger fans are probably rejoicing over the fact that Kalinin may be out for a bit because he was the brunt of boo's almost as bad as Marek Malik this season. However, he had been playing much better as of late and has improved his plus/minus slowly but surely.

If he misses time, newly-acquired defenseman Eric Reitz will likely fill his spot. Should be interesting to see if he can provide a spark at the blueline. Either way, the Rangers are slumping a bit right now. They get an easier opponent with the Thrashers as they celebrate Adam Graves Night, but they can't look past them. I'll write a piece on Graves night, which I will be attending, later in the week.