Idle rich

Rangers need a major overhaul to get out of neutral

Now that the NHL's playoff teams are all but set, and those much-watched and much-talked-about Rangers of New York have taken their customary spot on the outside looking in, it's time for them to make a public admission. The league's highest-spending and most poorly assembled club should at long last admit what any kid on any rink or pond could tell you: They've been going about it all the wrong way.

It's time for the Rangers to dismantle their overrated group and start from scratch. The rebuilding should have begun at the trade deadline, but it's never too late to get on the right path.

Before we go any further, you may be thinking that this playoff fight isn't over yet. As of Wednesday morning the Rangers were six points out of the playoffs with eight games to play, and the team they were chasing (the Islanders) had a game in hand. Your local mathematician will tell you that there's still a slim chance for the Rangers to win a few and get back into it. Forgive me for not holding my breath. This team has won three games in a row exactly once all season. On too many nights they've looked as if they hardly care.

Anyway, back to what the kid on the rink could have told you: It's development, stupid. A team needs to bring in young players, let them get to know each other, win together, lose together, fight together. A team needs a strong captain who's one of its best players. Then that team brings in a star or two to push it over the top. This formula is no mystery. Yes, finding the right players is very tough. But the principles are dead simple. Building a Cup winner takes time.

The Rangers instead abide by by a visionless quick-fix motto and no contingency plan. For so long team executives -- current general manager Glen Sather and Madison Square Garden president James Dolan; Neil Smith and David Checketts before them -- have put forth a myth: "New York is a win-now town," they say. "Fans who pay those high ticket prices aren't going to stand for rebuilding."

Poppycock. There is nothing an NHL fan appreciates more than a hustling young team with promise and desire. (Remember that kind of team, Glen?) Fans can live without a Cup today if there's hope for one tomorrow. The Rangers have consistently ruled out both possibilities before their season even started.

Remember when Sather fired Bryan Trottier in January and declared, "We're making the playoffs"? Dolan backed up Sather, saying he was "very, very happy with the job [Sather]'s done." It's as if they're watching, and believing in, a different team from the one the rest of the hockey world has been seeing. Don't they recognize that these stars have faded, that the mix is terribly wrong? Can't they see that? Eric Lindros was a truly great player once, and had unique skills. But are you telling me he's more effective at this point in his career than, say, the Islanders' Dave Scatchard?

These Rangers are a strange group. And things continue to get stranger. Star sniper Pavel Bure missed a crucial game with a knee injury that Sather referred to as "maybe psychosomatic." Or how about when Mark Messier chalked the Rangers' sloppy play up to the fact that the team hasn't had time to jell? Maybe that's because new players seem to arrive every few games, and because the Rangers are being run in a fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants manner. Call it one quick NON-fix after another. Sure, you have to acquire a player such as Alexei Kovalev when you have the chance, and maybe Anson Carter, too. But how is zero year-to-year stability supposed to help a team?

Everybody in the NHL has an opinion on the Rangers and their big fat get-you-nowhere payroll. Other teams have learned that the right amount of mis-spending shows that not only does high spending not guarantee a playoff berth -- it often works against it. Big-spending teams that win have a nucleus of guys who have been together for a while. Like the Red Wings (Yzerman, Lidstrom, Fedorov, Shanahan, McCarty, Draper, etc.) and the Stars (Modano, Lehtinen, Hatcher, Zubov, etc.). The Rangers have no nucleus at all.

Maybe the most disturbing of all the news lately was this from the Rangers' lone long-timer, the superb defenseman Brian Leetch: After the Rangers played spiritedly in beating the Islanders 1-0 on Monday, Leetch told the New York Times, "These games are fun. Throughout the season you have to work mentally to get through some games and these aren't one of them."

WHAAAAAT? Here a man who has played in only 43 games this season. He's on a team that has been desperate for a playoff berth since before the first puck was dropped. And he's saying it's hard to get up for regular-season games?

Oh, there's something very wrong in Rangerland. Maybe all the pampering gets to these guys (the Rangers do treat their players splendidly). Maybe it's the big salaries. Maybe it's that so many of the players are late in their careers and can see a simpler, less-draining life ahead. Whatever it is, this much is clear: Sather and the Rangers have been running the team the wrong way for years. Let the fire sale begin. It's time to start over.

Sports Illustrated senior writer Kostya Kennedy takes sides each week at SI.com.

 

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