Simply Unacceptable! NYR Flat as a board AGAIN

Short and Sweet and to the point, the New York Rangers last night were not good enough. The big line were bottled up all night, Rick Nash needs to be selfish and shoot more, Gabby’s Wrister has nothing on it, and BR looks very small on the ice. The second line created some chances. Step, Hags, Pyatt looked good and created plays, but couldn’t convert. Does that sound anything like the Rangers of the past Ranger fans? Derek Stepan really needs to pick his game up and start producing some points, and I mean immediately. It would be nice to see Hags bury one every once and a while and lets see if Pyatt can’t get back rolling. The 3rd and 4th lines are basically useless and that is quite scary to me. Boyle-Rupp-Ferriero and Halpern-Asham-Bickell create no chances an basically bring no Offense to the game at all. The tough guy persona that Torts likes to have on a team is really starting to burn the top 6. One thing that was nice to see was all 6 d-men rotating basically all night, with Matty G getting 10+ minutes. It was obvious that torts was searching for something or anything last night. I think Gilroy should get a shot playing a winger position as he has a knack for moving forward as the NYR  have plenty of depth albeit not the greatest, but plenty of depth nonetheless on the blue-line.  I think its time to let Stu Bickell sit one out as we have enough tough guys in the line-up to protect the stars. Sorry for the rambling on, but with nothing positive to write about, we have to revert to what’s on our minds and we all know that is a lot.

My projected line-up from here on out until CK and Cally come back healthy and ready to contribute.

BR-Gabby-Hags    Step-Nash-Asham    Boyle-Pyatt-Gilroy    Halpern-Ferriero-Rupp

I know some of you are saying Asham, second line, are you crazy, but hear me out and I will explain all these interesting combos.. First line easy to figure out, they know each other from last season, gelled fairly well last year and their speed and quick hands could be and should be lethal together. The 2nd line is interesting as I move Aaron Asham up there to join Step and Nash. What this does I allow Rick Nash to be the point man moving the puck up the ice, Asham can open some holes in front and he has some good hands and can score some goals when he plays with talented players as referenced by his success with Sid the past few years. Also this will give Step a scorer with him and perhaps take some of the pressure off him and he will start to score some goals and get his game going. The 3rd line would be nice with a few big bodies and then add Gilroy as a free flowing skater with a good shot to help out. Boyle and Pyatt can cycle and Gilroy can get into the slot to take some one timers as we know he likes to shoot. What I did with the 4th line was move Ferriero back, and mind you he has been playing well, skates nice, works hard, and fits the mold of a torts player, this allows for some speed and possible goal scoring on the 4th line with the toughness of Rupp and face-off skills of Halpern.  My main thought is this, put someone on every line that can potentially light the lamp because that’s the biggest issue and has been all year and in previous years. I just hope torts thinks about doing something of this sort to shake things up and to jump start this team. To add, once CK and Cally come back I would put CK up with the 1st line and slide hags back in place of Asham, Cally on the 3rd line in place of Gilroy and Asham to the 4th line in place of whomever is not playing the best at the time. At that point we consider putting Gilroy back as the 6th d-man… Thoughts???