Rangers-Leafs Post Mortem

Where do we begin?

This loss hurts for several reasons but none more so than thanks to the loss of Marian Gaborik for up to 4 weeks with a shoulder injury. With Chris Drury injured (broken finger again) and slated to miss 6 weeks the one point won doesn’t feel very good to the Rangers right now. And nor should it.

The Rangers were not very good (at all). Were it not for one or two great Henrik Lundqvist saves the Rangers would have likely conceded 6 for the second straight game. So what went well? Sean Avery. Yes, he shouldn’t slashed Komisarek once let alone twice but he played with a snarl, was creative offensively and gave it his all. Avery continues to play with an edge and at times plays beyond it, going too far but give me this Sean Avery over last year’s edition any time.  Brian Boyle showed he can contribute offensively too.

The bad in this game? There’s too much to mention but lets just hope Marc Staal’s second penalty that he has given up a game winning goal on – in consecutive games – does not become the norm. The Rangers failed to establish a fore-check for most of the game and the defensive zone coverage was poor, to be polite.

The Rangers, even after 3 games, have some serious issues to resolve. Yes they are playing reasonably well offensively (and will need to step up even more in Gaborik’s absence) but the defense is a shambles and Lundqvist too often is being left without protection. They may have been facing a hot team in the Leafs but this is a hot team not a particularly talented team. If the Rangers want to play beyond April they need to beat teams like Toronto at home.  The loss to the Isles hurt because it was sloppy and it was 2 points thrown away. This one hurt because the team now has to make do without their superstar forward and because, well, they were plain bad.