What a bizarre season it has been for the New York Rangers and the last 24 hours have been no exception. Tensions were flaring ever since the Rangers organization released their statement deeming George Parros "unfit" to continue in his role as Head of Player Safety. Thus created national attention on the New York Rangers going into this game as well as attention from the league. With all the questions and uncertainty about what was to come from this statement, David Quinn's media availability was put off... usually never a great sign.
The last thing anybody expected to happen was Jeff Gorton and John Davidson getting fired. John Davidson has such a history with this organization, the Rangers are in his roots. He played for the team, was the voice of the team alongside Sam Rosen, and was just a couple years back named president of the organization, an announcement that left fans giddy with excitement, JD was coming home. Despite Rangers owner James Dolan saying these decisions were "unrelated" to the Tom Wilson/statement situation, it seems overnight we sent JD packing, a tough pill to swallow for players, fans and staff alike.
Jeff Gorton being fired is quite the surprise as well, no GM in the history of the NHL has rebuilt a team as strongly as he has. The reason for these management changes according to Dolan are that he feels the team should've been in a better place at this point, that he wasn't happy with the teams results and felt it was time to move on. People forget, it has only been THREE YEARS since the letter went out, THREE. And in those three years we managed to, sign an absolute super star face of the franchise, trade two draft picks for a franchise defenseman, draft an insane amount of young talent including our new stud goaltender as well as a first and second overall player, and completely restructure the core of this team.
I truly think James Dolan just got bored, decided to check in on the Rangers, realized they didn't make playoffs like the Knicks are and decided to make changes. Do I think these changes are the worst thing in the world? It's hard to say. I will forever praise Jeff Gorton for what he's done to rebuild this team, however Chris Drury has indeed done a tremendous job with Hartford and has earned his keep. He had the opportunity to take other jobs at a higher rank but decided to stick with his team and I respect that. Not to mention, Drury was a part of all of Gorton's decisions anyway so in that regard, we're in good hands. As far as JD goes.. I don't know, I really think it's a bad look on the Rangers. I understand just because he's played and announced for us doesn't mean he's instrumental but the fact that we just sent him packing like that stings. You have to remember, he was a big part in getting Panarin to come here as well. His contributions to this franchise are obvious and it's a tough pill to swallow for sure.
I'll talk more about where this leaves the organization and what this could mean for David Quinn and company once the seasons over. There was still a hockey game to be played after all this chaos and it was a big one. The league didn't do anything about Tom Wilson so the Rangers had to and let me tell you, I am damn proud of this group. First off, anyone who says that fighting doesn't belong in the game anymore or that this kind of stuff is "bad for the sport" or just felt this wasn't an appropriate response, I truly don't know what to tell you. Find another sport to watch, fighting is part of hockey and there was absolutely no other way to start this game than the way it did.
The puck dropped at the garden and so did six sets of gloves. Deja Vu to 2012, Kevin Rooney, Colin Blackwell and Phil Di Giuseppe danced with Nic Dowd, Carl Hagelin and Garnet Hathaway to set the tone and send a message to start the game. I couldn't be more relieved, I truly thought this team was going to just let it go and not do anything about what happened the game before. Six fighting majors, three men to each teams respected penalty box. Very shortly after, Tom Wilson took to the ice for his first shift and Rangers veteran Brendan Smith did exactly what he should've, jumped him. Another fight and kudos to Smith man, Wilson may be a POS but at the end of the day he's 6"4 and 220+, it takes a lot of guts to go after a guy of that caliber.
Think it's over? Nope, Anthony Bitetto drops them with Michael Raffl and immediately after that Ryan Strome and Lars Eller have a go at each other. SIX fights in the first four minutes of the game. This wasn't about what the league did or didn't do, this was about respect and having your teammates backs. Having pride for the New York Rangers, I don't care what you think was or wasn't the way to respond to this situation but you have to agree, this is the first game since our last win that we played with any sort of heart or passion. That's what this game was about. Lighting a fire to spark this team back and to hopefully end the season on a high note.
There was almost a seventh fight, Morgan Barron has going at it with Oshie a little. Oshie dropped his stick and Barron thought that meant go time and dropped his gloves to which Oshie just skated away. Tj Oshie without a doubt was off limits that night and honestly, I'm so happy the guy got a hat trick, the guy deserved it and the fact that he even played last night was respectable enough. In all fairness, it's what Morgan Barron's third game in the league? Emotions were high and he definitely didn't realize it was Oshie or understand his situation. Rookie mistake, quite literally.
All in all, the rest of the game was meaningless, the score was meaningless, all that really mattered was proving that we're not a team you can just walk all over. When things hit the fan, we're going to stand up for each other and stand up for ourselves. Following the fight, Tom Wilson would leave the game with "an upper body injury" which is code for okay if he keep playing him they might keep taking runs at him so let's just sit him out and save him for playoffs. Can't really blame them. Buchnevich would get tossed for cross checking Anthony Mantha in the face, again can you blame him? Wilson proved you can basically assault someone and not face any repercussions. Not to mention Mantha was taking hacks and going after him to begin with. This was Buch's third penalty of the game so might as well give him the boot I guess. Ryan Strome would also eventually get tossed for slashing, now the refs start to prevent things from getting out of hand.
141 penalty minutes would be the tally in Washington's 4-1 win over the Rangers. That is 2.35 hockey games. The obvious question is if the league just suspended Tom Wilson would any of this happen? The answer is probably not, but you know George Parros was just sitting in his suite at MSG watching all of this go down and laughing. This game is what he wanted and because this is how he wants to operate as Head of Player Safety, the players won't truly be safe and chaos can and will always ensue. I'm just glad that if and when the time calls for it, the Rangers have each others backs and are willing to answer the bell.
Chris Feldman
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