Torts Preview

I know that I said I'd talk about sports at the beginning of this blog, and that I haven't really done that. I guess this is for a lot of reasons: all the stuff going on in law school that I can write about, the fact that I dont think most of the people who read my blog don't care much about sports, and because I haven't been really moved to do so. However, yesterday's events have finally moved me to write a sports blog post.

Yesterday, Rangers coach Tom Renney was fired (to the great delight of pretty much all Ranger fans), and was replaced with former Lightning coach John Tortorella. Now, the Rangers have been awful recently, and while it's not entirely Renney's fault, the man had to go. The question from here is what to do now. I have a few suggestions, most common, some not so common, as to how to salvage this season.

1) Sit Voros, play Prucha- This is a pretty obvious one for Ranger fans. Prucha has been inconsistent, but Voros has been consistently awful. He hasn't scored since November, doesn't really create traffic in front, and has been rendered superfluous by the trade for Erik Reitz. Prucha is probably gone because he's redundant as well (Dawes, Korpi, Callahan), but adding him to the lineup gives us the possibility of scoring goals and exhibits him for possible trading partners.

2) Sign Sean Avery- This is one that gives fans fits. Avery isn't a good person, this is a pretty obvious fact. He's also not gonna score much. Our power play sucks, so his ability to draw penalties is probably not helpful. However, he gives you solid passing, speed, and heart, and the latter has been extremely lacking in the Rangers this year. Dallas is gonna be picking up a bunch of his contract, and had he been available for that amount of money at the beginning of the offseason, there is no doubt in my mind that we would have kept him. So while our cap situation sucks, if we can find any way to fit him in (Trade Roszival? Shoot Redden?) we should do it.

3) Play Valiquette- Look, Henrik Lundqvist is a horse. He can play pretty much every day, but that doesn't mean he should. He has been standing on his head for us pretty much every game, but Steven Valiquette has been pretty damn good as well. Taking out that one atrocious game against Dallas, we're looking at a .927 save percentage and a 2.10 GAA. This is, on balance, better than Lundqvist. This is not to say that he's a better goalie, but that we can afford to give Henrik an occasional break and not be too worried.

4) Promote Sjostrom- Now, I don't know how many people are in my corner about this. I understand that he's a great checker, and a great penalty killer, but his speed and ability to finish leave me questioning why he has only taken 81 shots (less than 1/2 of what Gomez has taken). I see him as an admittedly less talented version of Zherdev. He can use his speed to make plays, and is a fantastic 1v1 player. Anyone who saw that shorthanded chance against TOR can't really argue that he deserves a chance to score, at least more so than some other players on this team.

5) Don't give up on D- This was a trademark of the Renney era. We might not be able to score, but we're not letting too many in (again, aside from Dallas). We need to keep playing intelligent defense, and support our goalies while still making a concerted effort to score.

Twenty-one games left in the year, and I think we can do this. If not, its gonna be a long winter.

May all your hits be crits,
B