Blueshirts daydream their way to another loss: Leafs romp Rangers 6-2

It wasn't pretty. That about sums up tonights game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. After being defeated 4-0 by the Hurricanes Monday night, the Rangers had a chance to redeem themselves after a effortless showing. That did not happen. The Rangers were flat for the first half of the 1st period and got burned twice. Defensive mistakes, and a lack of using the body hurt the Rangers early on. After going down 2-0, the Rangers had chances and they took advantage. They scored on their first 2 power plays. Dan Girardi and Fedor Tyutin scored both goals. Scott Gomez and Chris Drury recorded assists on both goals.

Going into the 2nd it was tied at 2, but it didn't get better from there on out. Toronto tallied 2 more in that period, and anyone could have seen it was not the Rangers night. Henrik Lundqvist put out his worst performance thus far this season. He allowed 3 goals on the first 8 shots and allowed 4 total on 10 shots. Steve Valiquette relieved Lundqvist but fared no better. He allowed 2 goals on 6 total shots in the 3rd period. The Leafs scored 6 goals on a total of 16 shots. The Rangers should have had this game. The Leafs showed up very passive, and some can say timid. They were not very aggressive with the puck, but they were aggressive with the body. They took advantage of almost every mistake the Rangers made, and scored almost every goal from their lack of effort. Jaromir Jagr got knocked down numerous times tonight, by the likes of the "Jagr Stopper" Hal Gill and returning defenseman Pavel Kubina.

The post game press conference left Tom Renney telling reporters that there was no passion, and no fight. He said it was like the NFL. If you don't have passion and drive you're not going to win. Hopefully the Rangers paid attention to those 2 words. PASSION and DRIVE. It doesn't take a lot of finesse and star power to make you win. That goes for all sports. With passion and drive though, anyone can achieve anything. It just seems though that certain nights the Rangers leave that at home or in the locker room.

After tonight's debacle, the team left on a quick flight down south. Tomorrow's task calls for the Atlanta Thrashers, who are coming off a 4-3 shootout victory over the Isles Wednesday night. The Thrashers currently stand only 3 points out of a playoff spot. The 2nd to 11th place spots in the east are seperated by only 6 points, with the Rangers only 2 points out of a playoff spot so far. We know it is way too early to put this into hindsight, but remember the 2 words, PASSION and DRIVE.