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January 31, 2010 E-MAIL PRINT

Defensive deficiencies doom Rangers

by Kevin Paul Dupont/

Editor’s note: This article originally appeared in the January 2010 issue of New England Hockey Journal.

Another year, another Broadway bust.

The Rangers opened the season impressively, 7-1-0, under the guidance of new coach John Tortorella (Melrose, Mass.), who was brought on late last season when Tom Renney was turfed, but approached midseason on a fast track to a postseason DNQ after a 8-15-3 stretch.

The biggest issue remains defense, specifically the money tied up in the non-performing likes of Wade Redden and Michal Rozsival, their two highest-priced blueliners and two most profound underperformers.

Redden has been woeful since arriving as a free agent from Ottawa, and he's on the books for four more years at $6.5 million cap hit. Rozsival, now in his fifth Rangers season, has two more years at a $5 million hit.

Identical twin uglies. Look for Rozsival to be bought out in June, at a $1.6 million cap hit over four years, provided they can't find someone willing to bite on a deal on or before the March 3 trade deadline.

But all they can do with Redden, now 32, is hope to find him a partner who fills in for his many inadequacies. That, by the way, was part of their thinking last March when they brought in Derek Morris as a rental.

Redden was going to be the guy to lead the Ranger rush out of their own end and also quarterback the power play. Through his first 109 games in a Blueshirt, his numbers were embarrassing, if not dumbfounding: 4 goals, 28 assists, 32 points.

If not for the netminding of Henrik ''The King'' Lundqvist, the Rangers would be testing the bottom of the conference with the likes of Carolina and perhaps Tampa (yet another bust in the making). Since the arrival of Glen Sather as boss in June 2000, they've routinely overspent on underperforming talent and they've never made it beyond the second round of the playoffs. In fact, in Sather's first four seasons in charge, they didn't qualify for the postseason, all the while posting a payroll that ranked among the top clubs in the league.

Something has to change here and that something, or someone, points to Sather, architect of the great Oilers dynasty in the '80s. Sather assembled the most dynamic, exciting offensive team in the history of the game (spare me the e-mails, Habs fans). But somewhere between the Alberta flatlands and the mean streets of Manhattan, Sather lost his touch, ironically when he was finally handed a limitless budget after years of penny-pinching in Edmonton.

Mark Messier, central to all that success in Edmonton, came aboard the Rangers front office this year as one of Sather's chief aids. Perhaps the succession plan, if there is one, will have Moose left in charge of a franchise makeover. But that will take some time, at least a couple of years, with the 66-year-old Sather in the meantime remaining in charge after a full decade of stumbling and bumbling.

Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at feedback@hockeyjournal.com.