On a normal day, it would be time to look ahead to tonight’s big rematch with the Pittsburgh Penguins. With the New York Rangers reeling and in last place in the East Division, this is yet another “must win” game, not necessarily for the standings, but for the team’s fragile psyche.
Instead, all of the attention is on Tony DeAngelo, his altercation with Alexandar Georgiev and speculation about his future. Let’s get DeAngelo out of the way.
The DeAngelo news
Nothing new has come over the transom since last night except for a report from Larry Brooks of the New York Post that it was rookie K’Andre Miller who broke up the altercation between DeAngelo and Georgiev.
Post has learned that it was K'Andre Miller who broke up the tussle in runway leading to room. https://t.co/IBAsvFsJ9U
— Larry Brooks (@NYP_Brooksie) February 1, 2021
There’s still no real news about the specifics of the altercation, what else DeAngelo had done to prompt the team to waive him and what his immediate future holds. The good news is we can expect to get some more information from the team this afternoon. David Quinn is expected to address the media around 530pm and he may be joined by Jeff Gorton and/or John Davidson.
What we do know is that DeAngelo cleared waivers and will be replaced in the lineup by Tony Bitetto. Georgiev missed the practice yesterday for “maintenance.” Whether that means physical or mental health, we don’t know.
DeAngelo did not skate yesterday, but Quinn said that was because of the waivers situation in case a team put in a claim.
Vince Mercogliano of USA Today reported that Miller reached out to DeAngelo yesterday, an indication that there was no longstanding ill will between the two.
Larry is reporting that it was K'Andre Miller who broke up the DeAngelo-Georgiev altercation.
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) February 1, 2021
FWIW, a well-placed source told me that K'Andre actually made the gesture of reaching out to Tony via text yesterday. All indications are there were no overt issues between the two #NYR https://t.co/yzjYxzEp7S
There are a lot of stories out there with some denied outright and others getting no response.
We did hear from Mika Zibanejad and Jacob Trouba after practice yesterday and when asked about DeAngelo, they were noncommittal except to express regret about their teammate’s situation.
Back to hockey
The Rangers will be going for their first win in four games against the Penguins tonight. Considering that before the season the Penguins were deemed to be one of the teams that the Rangers had a chance of passing in the final standings, the prospect of going winless in half of their games against them is really bad news.
The Rangers have shown a disturbing inability to hold onto leads, blowing leads in five straight games. They have actually gone into the third period with a lead in five of their eight games this season. How many have they won in regulation? One. In the NHL, if you go into the third period with a lead, the odds are that you will win. The Rangers are defying those odds.
After Saturday’s game, an irate Chris Kreider said that the Rangers play an East-West game and need to play a North-South game. He should take his own advice though Sunday he played more like that than in any other game this season.
The fact is the Rangers declared that they wanted to be harder to play against this season and they have gone in the opposite direction. Against a decimated Penguins defense, they did nothing to put pressure on them. Instead of dump and chase, it was dump and retreat.
Who is at fault? Clearly the players have not gotten the message of being harder to play against from their coaching staff. It points to a lack of leadership on the bench and behind it. If they don’t turn this around soon, it will be a long short season and the key date looking forward will be April 12, the trade deadline.