Tom Renney took the fall for the Rangers, but every player pulling on a Blue Shirt deserves some of the blame.
"All we can do is go out and try to beat Toronto."
-- New York Rangers Captain Chris Drury after the Rangers fired head coach Tom Renney and replaced him with John Tortorella
Nice Chris and truthful up to a point, but for the record it doesn't go near far enough and that's a problem.
That's a problem for you as captain and a problem for your teammates who are the New York Rangers.
Because getting ready for Wednesday's game with the Maple Leafs in Toronto is the least you can do for John Tortorella and if you and your teammates had been ready to play and performed to the best of your abilities last Sunday vs. Toronto you might have been able to save Renney's job.
Had you and your mates done that in the previous game, a lackluster performance at Buffalo resulting in a 4-2 loss despite the fact Scott Gomez took out Sabres goalie Ryan Miller early in the third period, you might have saved his job. And if you and your mates had made any kind of serious effort in the most recent run of two wins and 12 losses, nobody would even be talking about John Tortorella or Tom Renney. They wouldn't be talking about how general manager Glen Sather has put a team together that simply isn't performing and not just at the level expected from the immense payload and long-term guaranteed contracts.
But let's go a bit beyond that statement. Let's get all of the truth out.
To be sure, Renney is responsible for some of the problems that have beset your Rangers and to be absolutely drop dead certain, Sather is ultimately responsible for what's on Madison Square Garden Ice and so I can make a case that this is ultimately his mess as well.
But to be 100 per cent truthful, to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, your team is in freefall and in danger of missing the playoffs despite a 10-2 start on the season because you, Scott Gomez, Marcus Naslund, Wade Redden, most of the other forwards and virtually all of the other defencemen have been playing at a level less than their talents and far below their accepted level of compensation.
This is the dirty little truth writers and especially broadcasters don't like to talk about because, gosh forbid, what if you guys in the room stopped talking to them? What if they didn't have tape for the show at 11 or that quick sound bite for the pre-game show? What if the writers were to "lose the room" and have to deal with a team vow to close them out, to only talk to the ones who were friendly, rooting for them or lobbying in the media to get them that "much deserved" big new contract? Worse, what if guys in the room surrounded one of them like the Islanders did a few years back and threaten him with physical harm? That would be a problem, wouldn't it?
But here's the truth that maybe the guys who pull a Rangers sweater over their heads Wednesday night and for the remainder of this season need to understand: Tom Renney, a good man and a good coach (and for the record, a man I have no personal relationship and barely a professional one with) got fired because the New York Rangers on the ice didn't play to the best of their ability.
He got fired because you guys are protected by long-term, big-money contracts and safety nets that keep most of you from being banished to the minors. He got fired because like you guys always say, "They can't fire the whole team so they did the only thing they could; they fired the coach."
That's too bad for Renney, too bad for Rangers fans and, for the record, too bad for hockey.
And in a sense, it's too bad for you and your mates Chris, because this falls on you to some degree.
You guys weren't expected to be the best team in the NHL, but you know you were good (still 10th out of 30 teams) and are good enough to make the playoffs.
What Renney needed to make that happen was a little help. It could have come from Sather in the form of a deal, but that was difficult. The Rangers are pretty much up against the cap because Sather gave the money to you guys.
That means change had to come from within and when it didn't, when the wheels came off what looked to be a serviceable bus, you guys didn't respond.
You guys came out and went through the motions and you kept doing it and doing it until Sather had no choice but to make a move. He made the only one he could, the only one left when a team fails to perform, he fired his coach.
He put aside the fact that it was the same Tom Renney who directed the team to three straight playoff appearances since the lockout, a decent barometer of coaching success in today's NHL. He fired the man who twice got the team into the second round of the postseason despite the fact that it had its shortcomings, missing pieces and systems that to some at least had become "tiresome." He fired a man who had become his friend and trusted advisor because the new guys, the guys who were supposed to fill in those holes and make up for those departed players, didn't do their jobs.
That falls on you and your teammates, Chris.
You may not like to hear it, especially because things have always gone pretty well for you in Colorado, Calgary and Buffalo, stops that all helped you get that big Rangers contract and the ‘C ‘on your sweater. I understand it would have helped if there was a winger to finish off your passes, but that minus-11, that's on you. It falls on Gomez too, even though he was something of a second-line legend in New Jersey, he was seldom a minus-nine there. It falls on Redden (minus-11)and Naslund (minus-14) and Nikolai Zherdev and Petr Prucha and Michael Rozsival and Paul Mara and Dmitri Kalinin and Daniel Girardi.
Like I said, you guys aren't the best team in the NHL, but that doesn't change the fact that the bulk of you let your performance slip to the point that Tom Renney had to take the fall for you.
It could all change now that Renney's gone. Like Renney, John Tortorella is a good coach and he's also a tough-minded one. He'll step in and he'll also step up to fill the leadership role you guys couldn't handle. He'll demand better because that's what he does and you guys might follow because, hey, it's embarrassing to get a coach fired and heck, a little effort goes a long way in making people forget what happened before the new guy got there (see Ottawa 2008-09 as exhibit A in this regard).
But in the end, this falls on every Ranger who pulled on a New York sweater this season.
A change had to be made, that's the truth, but it's not the whole truth and nothing but the truth.
Not even close.