Fans of the New York Rangers have been witnessing a total breakdown of the team’s performance on the ice, and are hoping this Christmas brings good tidings.
By Patrick Comia
With the the Blueshirs winning last night, a little normalcy returned to the Big Apple.
Perhaps a little relief came over the brows of New York Rangers fans, who have had to sit and watch the team do a total 180 on the ice, and play some uncharacteristic hockey not seen since the “dark ages”.
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In their previous 10 games, the Rangers were 3-5-2. What happened? How did it come to this?
Sure blame injuries to key players like Derek Stepan and Kevin Klein. As a result of their absence from the lineup, head coach Alain Vigneault had to juggle lines, mixing and matching, putting players in different roles, a revolving carousel of moves that would make on dizzy.
But, as we have been writing about for some time, there is a disturbance that has manifested itself on the ice that is making it hard for a fan to watch.
Three areas that are concerning to Rangers fans could dictate how well the team performs going forward:
– Defense
– The Kraken
– Henrik Lundqvist
These three areas need to improve. Correct that, MUST improve in order to build confidence that this team will be ok if they make the postseason.
The word “if” is used because we all know, things change in a heartbeat and if the Rangers’ play pre-Christmas break is any indication of things to come, well, you can cancel plans to attend a Stanley Cup Playoff game at Madison Square Garden in April and save up your vacation and sick days at work cause the Blueshirts won’t be on NBCSN.
But, if these three areas on the team do improve and perform the way we know they are capable of performing, then there is no reason to doubt the Blueshirts will make the postseason. It would only be a question of how they will go.
