Fail to plan, plan to fail. What makes it worse is it looks like Tortorella wanted Gaborik gone. Now he's gone, too. Trade the player to please the coach, then fire the coach? Is the problem the coach or the players? Sather alternates scapegoats.
There's no team identity. Tortorella's hard-working, hard-hitting, shot-blocking teams that outworked everyone and relied on Lundqvist to come up big when the cracks showed weren't good enough so Sather brought in a new coach with a new philosophy, but the players don't match. Prust's importance to the team has been overrated recently but least players like him and Mitchell fit in the roles Tortorella put them in. What is Sather doing with players like Pyatt and Pouliot on this team? Or Brassard? They don't score enough, don't play defense enough, don't hit enough. What do they contribute?
Callahan isn't the goal scorer Nash and Gaborik are. Micheletti was getting on Nash last night and he was right. The Rangers needed something from him. 22:51 played, -2 and 0 shots on goal against the Columbus Blue Jackets. A team he should have been revved up to score some goals against. I don't know if Tortorella behind the bench would have been enough to light a fire under Nash. Outshot by Brad Richards 9-0.
A faction of players in the Rangers dressing room probably weren't too upset to see Tortorella fired, but I bet they'd like to see Sather find some goal scorers. Speaking of players who don't miss Tortorella, Richards was supposedly ready to live up to his contract this year with a new coach in town. As of today, he's on pace for 62 points over 82 games, which is an astounding 1.4 points better than last year's pace had it been an 82 game season. So much improvement.
