Good good good, followed closely by shitty shitty shitty.

Luckily shitty was all in 1 day... at least so far. As the Rangers have done all season long they continue to be streaky. 3 wins in a row and all good road wins followed closely by an awful performance against the worse team in the leage. Not many times have I said in my life that I would give up on something, but after this season if I was Tom Renney I would be requesting a trade. These aren't the Rangers of the late late 90s and the early 2000s this team was supposed to succeed and win easily with this roster. They had hard working players come in via free agency not danglers and past their prime high key players. They got Chris Drury (who has finally decided to start playing) and Scott Gomez. Both in thier prime superstars in the NHL, I use superstar lightly but they are in most people's eyes mostly because they signed big deals with the largest market team, but still in that class nonetheless. What Sather didn't count on is Jagr not being there at all, and the defense having a collapse and King Henrik seem to fall apart all mid-season. Was there anything anyone could have done. Probably not but if that was me walking into the lockeroom on tuesday night, I would have had nothing to say... nothing. I most likely would have stood there silent for 10 to 15 minutes without saying a word. Then left. There is no amount of words that can explain that loss on tuesday other than being not mentally prepared which is a joke in the situation they are in. With the players that they have on their roster, the leadership the veterans, the expectations all should have easily pushed them in front of the Kings on tuesday night. What did they get bad defensive turnovers and mistakes that shouldn't have been made.

In the NHL these days on any given night anyone can beat anyone. There is too much talent on every team up and down to be thinking this will be an easy game. Every night, every game needs 100% effort without a doubt. And like many other games this season it wasn't all there. None of it was there. The Rangers aren't the Red Wings, and the Red Wings are the only team in the NHL that is even close to that level where they can give a little less effort and still win. The Rangers aren't there, and the way this season has gone, there is no room left for anything less. There are 26 games left in the season heading into tonight. For a team fighting for a playoff spot in a conference where everyone can still make it. More than half of them need to be wins, and more than that probably 75%-80% need to be wins. Teams will fall out of the running but so far none have. A couple of teams getting hot and one bad streak by the rangers and they are not only out of the playoffs but playing the bottom dwellers of the conference. Less than 20 points seperates the top team in the conference (Ottawa) and the bottom team (Lightning). The Rangers are 8 points out of the conference lead, and only 3 points takes them out of the playoffs. If the rangers can get hot and stay hot, beat the bad teams and beat most of the teams that are in front of them the season can be saved. However just making the playoffs isn't enough. That is underachieving for this team that came into the season basically looking to make it to the cup.

Maybe that is the problem though. Maybe the expectations are too high for this team and that is why it looks like Jagr isn't having fun out there. No smiles, no good times to be had from the captain and fact of the matter is with out Jagr the team doesn't go. Someone else needs to step up or the team stands still. Drury has stepped up as of recently and the team has begun to win without Jagr's help.