Rangers stomped by Coyotes at MSG

December 17, 2007

The last time Wayne Gretzky was at the Garden for a hockey game as a member of one of the competing teams, the Rangers were in a similar state - wobbling without direction while unable to maximize the talents of one of the game’s all-time greats.

The difference now is that the Rangers have plenty of season left to right themselves and unlock what is shackling Jaromir Jagr. That, of course, presumes that the wallowing current Rangers figure out sometime soon that their recent slide does not equate to the helpless state of affairs on April 18, 1999, when Gretzky played his last NHL game on Garden ice to close a lost Rangers season.

Sunday night, with Gretzky behind the visiting bench, the Phoenix Coyotes took advantage of backup goaltender Steve Valiquette and the Rangers’ fragile psyches to pound the home team, 5-1.

That makes five losses in six games for the Rangers. More damning: They’ve allowed four goals or more in all five losses. Worse still: They’ve reacted to falling behind - as they did on a fluke goal off the skate of defenseman Fedor Tyutin 3:11 into yesterday’s game - as if the sky has fallen.

“A lot of times, when you’re not playing with absolute certainty, a puck will go off your skate, and that’s how you’ve got to start the game,” said Valiquette, pressed into service because Henrik Lundqvist had the flu. “And that’s kind of the way it’s been going lately.”

Things were going pretty much as expected until Joel Perrault’s centering pass out of the left corner caromed off Tyutin’s skate and redirected past Valiquette on Phoenix’s first “shot” of the game. Which is to say the rested Rangers, off since Wednesday, were taking it to the road-weary Coyotes, playing their third game in four days.

But Ilya Bryzgalov, whose claim off waivers by Phoenix GM Don Maloney a month ago has given the Coyotes a new confidence, held off the Rangers’ quick start. And when they fell behind, the Rangers sagged visibly and badly.

“It seemed like, after they scored their goal, we kind of went: ‘Oh, gee.’” coach Tom Renney said. “And you can’t win that way.”

Certainly, they can’t win with the kind of wilting they’ve done under forechecking pressure and the kind of porous goaltending they’ve received over the last half-dozen games. Both were on display in a gruesome second period, in which Phoenix - which has scored fewer goals than any of the league’s 30 teams except the Rangers and Islanders - exploded for four to break it open.

Jagr, meanwhile, has no goals and one assist in his last six games, but he’s only one of many Rangers who appear lost right now. Asked how many of his players he thought were going good, Renney paused, then replied: “Three maybe?”

As for Gretzky, his return to the Garden was a rewarding one. “It’s a special place and I was telling my guys before the game that the atmosphere here is one of the best you’re going to see in the hockey world,” he said. “For me, I had three great years here. It was nice to come back tonight. It was an enjoyable night.”

CALLY DOWN: Struggling RW Ryan Callahan was sent to Hartford (AHL) with forwards Nigel Dawes and Greg Moore called up.

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