Examining another impending Rangers collapse

When the New York Rangers squandered a 1-0 lead in the third period and dropped Game 3 of the Eastern Conference semifinals series to the Boston Bruins, they effectively closed the book on another season that should have ended far more positively. Sure, the Blueshirts are not eliminated just yet, but any win(s) in the remaining games of this series are simply delaying the inevitable. The Bruins will advance to the Eastern Conference finals, where the winner of the Pittsburgh Penguins/Ottawa Senators series awaits.

The discussion about what went wrong and how to fix it will soon begin for New York. It seems like a broken record, but the same issues that have plagued the Rangers the past few years surfaced once again in 2013. The Rangers can’t score. The power play is abysmal. Has John Tortorella’s system of coaching run its course?

It’s clear that no magic bullet exists in this league to fix the Rangers. One would have thought everything was put together a year ago when they won the East and advanced all the way to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals. But that was a team that overreached its ability and set a bad precedent. They were deemed a Stanley Cup contender all of a sudden when they are still a team with holes and deficiencies that no team hoping to be a champion can have.

Scoring

The big take from a year ago was that the Rangers needed to score more goals. For as solid a team as they were on defense, an inability to put the puck in the net hindered them from closing teams out early and it caught up to them against the New Jersey Devils.

It was hard to imagine a team with 40-goal scorer Marian Gaborik leading the way couldn’t score, but it was not and that needed to be fixed. The Rangers finally completely a deal for Rick Nash over the offseason that could have taken place prior to the trade deadline had then-general manager Scott Howson realized there was no other option but the one that netted his team Brandon Dubinsky, Artem Anisimov and Tim Erixon. That move was meant to be enough to get the Rangers over the hump, because surely a 30-goal scorer in Columbus could fix the Rangers’ scoring woes.

He didn’t, and Gaborik only got progressively worse this year. Gaborik, who became the victim of a system that did not accentuate his abilities, was shipped off to Nash’s former team for a glut of players intended to add depth and grit to the lineup. Along with the acquisition of Ryan Clowe, the offense seemed sparked with 48 goals in 13 games (3.69 goals per game) — by comparison, the Rangers scored 81 goals in the 35 games prior to the trade deadline, or an average of 2.31 goals per game. And in truth, Derrick Brassard would go on to be the Rangers’ best postseason player aside from Henrik Lundqvist with a team-high 10 points as of Game 3.

That is all merely an illusion off progress, though. The Rangers are no better offensively than they were when Gaborik was in the mix. Players like Brad Richards and Nash are not upholding their end of the bargain and the Rangers are relying on second-option scoring to carry the load. They remain the same 5-on-5, defense-first squad they were when Tortorella first took over. It’s as if they have given up on improving at goal-scoring and are resigned to the idea of trying to out-grind the opposition. Against a team like the Bruins, who have outworked them and made the Rangers look amateur especially in Game 3, the Rangers need to be able to create quicker scoring chances and actually finish.

Power Play

The Rangers’ lack of scoring is no more obvious than on the power play. The one aspect of the team that has been more hurtful than helpful to the team since even before Tortorella took over behind the bench, the power play has no sense of direction, urgency or leadership.

This deficiency was put on full display against Boston in Game 3, where the Rangers “freelanced,” as NBC analyst Pierre McGuire put it. Jeremy Roenick took it even further by calling the Rangers out for standing around and watching somebody else do their thing. The players are lost when they get the man advantage and they were 0-for-10 on the power play in three games against Boston.

One could blame the coaches for this issue, since years of problems still have not been rectified. The players must be held accountable, too, though. The long search for a power play quarterback or even just a general leader with some concept of how to run an efficient 5-on-4 situation had netted zero results. Wade Redden was a bust. Brad Richards can’t run the point. There is no homegrown answer, either, as Michael Del Zotto or Dan Girardi will never be consistent enough to make it work long term.

The Rangers need to make a drastic change to get the power play back to productivity. They just have to figure out what that drastic change needs to be first, which has proven to be easier said than done time and time again.

Coaching

The inevitable question arises: Is John Tortorella the right man to lead this team to a championship?

When the fiery coach was hired in February 2009 to replace Tom Renney, he brought with him a drastically different philosophy. Renney was known for having a calm, cool demeanor and building good relationships with his players. Tortorella doesn’t care for players’ feelings or pedigree. His aggressive, sometimes overbearing personality brought a sense of urgency and accountability to an organization that needed players to realize their championship potential.

Tortorella also catalyzed the youth movement in New York. He convinced general manager Glen Sather to forgo the blind spending on high-priced free agents strategy he was accustomed to for much of his regime in New York and concentrate more on building a team through the system. Why continue trading for or signing players like Eric Lindros, Bobby Holik, Scott Gomez or Chris Drury when you have perfectly good, young talent already in the organization waiting to break through?

It was with Tortorella that Ryan Callahan really grasped the leadership role on the team. The defense was built into one of the league’s best when Ryan McDonagh, Marc Staal, Girardi and Del Zotto learned together and played together on the Rangers’ top defensive units. And there’s still Dylan McIlrath waiting in the wings to stake his claim to a job on the blueline that could remain intact for the next decade or more.

In all, Tortorella gave the team direction and he changed a culture to enable the Rangers to build a foundation toward success. Unfortunately, he has a personality that can wear thin over time; has a short fuse for player mistakes, benching players like 40-goal scorer Gaborik for entire periods when the team needs to score to get back into a game; seems to have more clichés than answers when it comes to addressing problems; and suffers from the same incessant need as his predecessor to constantly adjust his lines, therefore causing a disruption in chemistry that does trickle down to the bumbling power play.

For all the good Tortorella has done for the organization, it’s possible he has run his course on Broadway. Sean Avery, who was effective for the Rangers until Tortorella ran him out of town, called for the coach’s firing earlier in the season, and the team came to his defense with a response from captain Callahan. But Avery wasn’t the only one thinking it and there will be more questioning Tortorella’s ability to get this team to the next level.

What is working

It is not all gloom and doom for the Rangers. It would almost seem reasonable to shoot for some sort of small rebuild if it wasn’t for the fact that the Rangers are where they need to be from a defensive perspective. A young core that can shut down the world’s best scorers is backstopped by the best goalie in the NHL. It’s been proven that these factors alone will not win enough games for New York, but they can keep the team in games as the scorers hope something works out on the other end of the ice.

The Rangers also have heart and soul players, like Derek Stepan and Callahan to keep the team motivated and focused even in downtimes. Callahan sets the best example for the Rangers as a whole, which is why he wears the “C.” He blocks shots, forechecks hard, drives to the net and has improved as a passer to set up his teammates. Stepan has eclipsed Richards as the premier center in the Rangers’ lineup, and even Brassard may be the Rangers’ second-best option above the second-highest paid player on the team.

The system is also stocked with good, young players. It’s possible Chris Kreider has been ruined by the organization, but J.T. Miller still has promise and the likes of Christian Thomas, Ryan Bourque, Oscar Lindberg , Jesper Fasth and McIlrath gives the Rangers’ some potential going forward if callups need to be made.

Where they’re at

At the root of it all, this is still a young team with more structure than it had pre-Tortorella. This is a playoff team and isn’t exactly seeking an identity anymore, as the coach used to caution folks during his initial years with the Rangers.

The team just won’t contend for a Stanley Cup unless it randomly catches fire, as was the case during the 2011-12 season. The Rangers played beyond themselves last year, but that isn’t going to happen every year. Until the offensive woes are addressed, their play outside of 5-on-5 situations is greatly improved and even the grittiness of their play becomes more consistent, the Rangers will basically remain a first or second round team at this pace.