It's Like One Ginormous Jigsaw Puzzle

The Rangers have all the pieces to succeed. On paper, they are easily an above .500 team. Easily. Translating that to the ice seems to be the problem.  I see it as a big jigsaw puzzle, all the pieces are there, they just need to be put together so they fit.  At the center of the puzzle is something we all want to see. Wins.  Getting all the pieces to surround the center piece seems to be the issue.

Consider the corner pieces. Richards. Lundqvist. Callahan. Staal.  Alone, they’re good, but they don’t connect to the center.  You need to find the pieces that fit.  And if you’ve ever done a jigsaw puzzle, you know that takes time and patience.  You may find one that looks like it’s going to fit, but one side doesn’t quite match up.  So you find another piece, and that one is slightly off.  It takes time to find the one that fits perfectly. We’ve seen line changes a plenty so far in the 9 games that they’ve played so far, all in an effort to find something that fit. We’ve seen the highly touted Gaborik-Richards duo split up, then rejoined, and different wingers swapped off and on their line.  All in an effort to find something that fit.  We’ve seen Avery sent down to the Whale, and now a possible recall. We’ve seen bad coaching, good coaching.  We’ve seen the star goalie make a sub-par appearance.  We’ve seen players sent down, called up, injured, benched… All pieces to the puzzle. 

The one thing the Rangers have on their side, for now, is time.  Being only 9 games in to the season is not an ideal time to be struggling, but it is also not the worst time.  It could be worse, having these issues with 40-50 games left.  Time is another piece to the puzzle, but one that has to find its place fairly quickly.

So, who is putting all these pieces together?  One could blame Tortorella for the shuffling of pieces.  But, in reality, he’s a puzzle piece himself.  Everyone is in control of their own piece to the puzzle. Players, coahes, management.  They all need to work together and put forth the effort to make the pieces fit. And quickly, there is only so much of my acid reflux medication I can take in a day...