Tuesday, November 4, 2008

Coach Switch...

Considering how often Tom Renney switches up lines when they are clicking (Zherdev-Dubinsky-Voros, Drury-Callahan-Dawes, Gomez-Naslund, Cullen-Prucha-Ortmeyer), why does he never switch the power play lines up?

How many times last year did Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan not score before he started throwing Petr Prucha out there? Oh, he didn't switch them up. This year, it's been Drury-Gomez-Naslund-Redden-Rozsival the whole year for about 80 seconds, then they lose the puck, and Zherdev, Dubinsky, and others take their place with 30 seconds to score.

Blair Betts technically has scored more times than Chris Drury, yet Drury goes out time and again to swipe at pucks and miss. (I saw "technically" because while they both have 2 goals, one of Drury's was barely a goal and he hardly touched it before it deflected in from behind the net.) Rozsival has one PP goal. In tonight's game against the Islanders (currently in the 3rd period), he has been responsible for more SH goals than that. Embarrassing.

Am I saying Betts is the answer? Obviously not. But why not have Nik Zherdev, Brandon Dubinsky, and Aaron Voros get a crack at it? Prucha would love some PP time. So would Ryan Callahan.

For Pete's sake (not Prucha's), Joey MacDonald is a career backup goaltender who the Rangers are making look like Dominik Hasek, not the guy who backed him up for 8 games in Detroit two years ago. They are making him look like an All-Star with their low angle shots that go right into the crest on his jersey. 

10-3-1, 10-4-1, 11-3-1, 10-3-2, whatever they end up after tonight, their power play is atrocious and while Renney keeps telling reporters he's going to change things, I'm very skeptical about it.

No comments:

Post a Comment