Chants...

While I am advocating for Tom Renney to be replaced, in no way do I think he is a bad coach who needs to be ostracized from the league. Like Emile Francis, Lester Patrick, and Mike Keenan before him, Renney will always be remembered as a Ranger coach - regardless of when he is relieved of his duties and regardless of what other teams he eventually coaches.

He brought the team that was predicted to be 15th in the Eastern Conference the year after the lockout and took them to the 6th seed. They were a group of Czechs (Jagr, Straka, Rucinsky, Rozsival, Malik, Sykora), a group of rookies (Moore, Ortmeyer, Hollweg, Prucha), and a group of ragtag veterans (Nylander, Rucchin, Jay Ward, Strudwick, Nieminen), and he took them to within 1 point of the Atlantic Division title.

This year, his loyalty almost got the best of him. To be honest, last year it almost did too, until Jaromir Jagr started playing like a beast and he started relying less on Brendan Shanahan. But this year, he keeps sending out the same players (Gomez, Redden, Naslund, Drury, Rozsival) who aren't getting the job done. Time and time again, the same ineffective players go out on the ice. Sometimes, Markus Naslund gets lucky and connects with 10 seconds left, or Nik Zherdev scored with 10 seconds left, but most of the time, Scott Gomez misses the net and Wade Redden loses the puck. Yet, they are still counted on.

I am merely advocating for his termination because his time has come. He has done all he can with the Rangers, and a replacement is necessary.

In January, February, and March of 2004, the Garden chanted relentlessly for GM (and interim coach) Glen Sather to be fired. (We also chanted "RE-FUND" when they lost a home game.) 

Under no circumstances do I want to hear "Fire Renney" chants. I can care less about a recurrence of the "Fire Sather" chants, because he isn't very likeable, he hasn't done much for this team (whatever good he did, like trading for Jagr and drafting Marc Staal, Artem Anisimov, and Brandon Dubinsky, could've been done by any GM), and replacing him should probably be done sooner rather than later.

But Renney was serviceable as a coach, and put his heart into it, from when he replaced Sather for the final 20 games of the 2003-04 season (5-15-0) to right before the All-Star break this year. He was so good in 05-06 that he was nominated for Coach of the Year.

So no. Please don't chant for Renney's head tomorrow. If it happens, it happens, but treat him with respect.