If This Doesn't Convince You...

Posted 10:40 PM ET | Comments 6

Since John Tortorella took over the head coaching job of the New York Rangers, the once struggling team went 3-1-1, getting 7 out of 10 possible points after picking up only 7 points in the entire month of February while Tom Renney was the coach. The three wins have been consecutive and the winning streak is still going into Monday night when Carolina hosts the Blueshirts. During the streak:

- The Rangers have won 3 straight for the first time since beating Ottawa, the Islanders, and Chicago in Mid-January.

- They have won 3 straight games in regulation for the first time since they opened the season with a 5 game win streak.

- They have scored 14 goals in a three game span for the first time this season.

- They have scored a power play goal in three consecutive games, and 4 PPGs in 3 games, for the first time this season.

- The power play has gone 4 for 13 for a 30.8% success rate. Their season PP% is less than half of that, at 14.6%

- The top players: Scott Gomez (3,2) Chris Drury (2,3) Nikolai Zherdev (3,2) and Markus Naslund (2,1) have combined for 10 goals and 8 assists.

- They have surrendered only 6 goals for a 2.00 GAA, which is .65 better than the season average, despite playing more offensively.

- Since Tortorella became coach, the Rangers have outscored opponents by a 18-9 margin, or 3.6 to 1.8 on average.

If this doesn't convince you that the new coach has breathed life into the Rangers and given them a fighting chance to make noise in the postseason, nothing will.

Filed Under: rags2riches rags2riches tortorella rangers power play

Rags2Riches

March 8, 2009 10:43 PM ET | Delete
EDIT: The Rangers also scored a season high 6 goals in a game.

evitageN

March 8, 2009 11:18 PM ET | Delete
HAHA love it Ragsy, Torts is the real deal... If it doesn't happen this year, next year will be great too, players will be more used to the system and we should play MORE consistent hockey throughout... Everyone hits slumps but imagine if we went 10-2-1 like we did and then had Torts the rest of our mediocre months of Nov, Dec, Jan, Feb we'd be solid I believe

steponmytoe

March 8, 2009 11:20 PM ET | Delete
let's hope they can keep it going

Takhar7

March 9, 2009 12:18 AM ET | Delete
The improvement is no doubt due to the "honey moon" period after the hiring of Torts. The real test is whether they can keep it up or not - you would expect a team with that much talent to rally around a new coach and adversity the way that they have. Can they keep it going? If so, then I will be convinced of his merit in New York.

C4LL4W4Y

March 9, 2009 8:56 AM ET | Delete
Actually the real test is whether or not Tortorella will be able to handle the adjustments opposing coaches are going to make. Renney's defensive version of a puck possession game was exploited by Buffalo early on in the season and from that point up through Renney's firing, the NYR were a mediocre team at best. If Torts can get these guys to increase their level of execution each game, this team will be rolling with a good chance to do damage in the playoffs.

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