Close, But Not Quite There

Before the home and home with the Islanders I tweeted: “Rivalry? Yes. Throw out the records? Of course. But…two MUST wins for #Rangers against #Isles. Anything else is unacceptable. Agreed?”

Obviously, any Ranger fan would agree with this because, let’s face it, we never like seeing the Rangers lose to the Isles and always feel like they should beat them. But I also meant this from a Rangers perspective in terms of what it would show us about this team. There’s no question that anytime these two teams play anything can happen. Just look at that game Thursday night. What a wild and nerve-wracking game. The fact of the matter is the Islanders are a very bad team. Again. The Rangers are a far superior team in terms of talent. Thus, they should win those games. Well it turns out they did. Back-to-back wins and four very important points. That is where they are “close”. Close to being a very different team than teams from the past few years. A team we can trust much more to get the job done when it should.

But then we got a dose of reality. I’m not trying to be pessimistic here, just realistic. The Rangers came out totally flat in the first 20 minutes of yesterday afternoon’s game against the Senators. Ottawa has scored the fourth fewest goals in the NHL this year. They came into the Garden with a brutal scoreless streak that the Rangers were able to extend to 200+ minutes. Even while completely forgetting to show up in the first 20 minutes, the Rangers still were in a scoreless game heading into the second period. They then outplayed the Sens for the final two periods and still lost the game 3-1.

These are the kinds of games that make the Rangers still not quite “there”. Good teams don’t allow slumping teams to hang around. They take advantage early, throw the first punch and knock them out, especially in their home building. What the Rangers did was come out flat and give a down team some life. Credit the Sens for coming out flying, but I put more of the blame on the Rangers not showing up early. Say what you want about coming off an emotional couple of games against the Isles, but every game has to be important for a team like the Rangers. They can’t take games for granted, or not show up in them, and expect to be a contender.

Fact of the matter is this year’s team is better than past years, but I think they are still going through some growing pains. They are still not quite there in terms of being that consistently good team. Despite the loss yesterday, the team has a couple days to regroup and try to continue its road success against the very same Senators.

**I’m on the road tonight at Yale for a basketball broadcast, but Eric and I will find some time to get a podcast up before the next Sens game Thursday night. Remember to get your questions in at hosts@nyrangerscast.com. We’ve had some great feedback from a number of you as to where you’re listening to us from. It’s really great to hear from everyone out there, whether it’s where you listen from, why you listen or what you think of this Rangers team throughout the course of the season. Keep sending us your thoughts and comments. We have a heavy mailbag for the next show!**