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Rangers Cut Ties with Tom Renney

2009_02_renney.jpg Scapegoating anyone? The Rangers have fired coach Tom Renney with the club in the middle of a dreadful slide. After once looking like an Eastern Conference favorite thanks to a 10-2-1 start, the Rangers have slipped to within one point of the final playoff spot. With one quarter of the season remaining, the still-immune Glen Sather hopes the team can recover in time after the leadership change. Renney's task this season was not easy, but he appeared to get off on the right foot, adjusting well to the departures of Jaromir Jagr and Brendan Shanahan. But his skaters, including Chris Drury and Scott Gomez, still had big names -- and big contracts -- and a middling performance in the season's second half did him in.

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  • NEVER BLAME THE PLAYERS. Just the coach.



    Idiots.

  • captainblackout

    Blame the players for playing like crap, blame the coach for not implementing a system that works for the players he has, blame the GM for signing the crap players, blame the owner for keeping the crap management team. Blame yourself for following the Rangers and go read a book instead.

  • peterc

    leetch night graves night bathgate/howell night

    rangers 0 for 3



    if you can't motivate wins on those nights

    you are pathetic



    farewell renney

    and

    farewell to the blog:

    http://www.renneyyoungman.blogspot.com/

  • bsalamon

    can they fire Wade Redden, Chris Drury and Scott Gomez?

  • jackdonaghy

    Sather is the bigger culprit here, but he's not going anywhere. Like I've said before, if Dolan let Isiah run the Knicks into the ground for years, he'll certainly let Sather stay on since the Rangers have been decent the past 3 seasons.



    WFAN is reporting that former Lightning coach (and one time Rangers assistant) John Torterella is the likely replacement. He won the Cup the season before the players strike.

  • Teddie Boy Eddie

    Sather must have some incriminating photos of Dolan, because I cannot fathom how this guy keeps his job. Renney had to go, though. It was clear he lost the team, and he had no answers for their struggles.



    I hope Torterella does come back. He will at least discipline players who make the same stupid mistakes over and over again (I'm looking at you Redden and Roszival).

  • jackdonaghy

    Add Blair Betts to that list too after his awful penalty last night...



    Torterella is a hard nosed coach - I wonder if he'll want Avery on the team.

  • Guest

    "Torterella is a hard nosed coach - I wonder if he'll want Avery on the team."



    Not if he knows what's good for the team. As you can tell by my avatar, I'm a Cowboys fan, but I've known since the day they brought in TO that the team was going to suffer because of it. I will buy the entire bar a drink the day they trade him.

  • jackdonaghy

    Does the drink offer stand if the 'Boys cut him?

  • Guest

    Only if they actually cut him... with a large knife!

  • captainblackout

    Fire Blair Betts??!! You must be joking. What a fickle bunch of whiners Ranger's fans have become...



    Sather has to go, if for nothing else than reason that he touted going younger for not resigning shanny, jagr and others and then went and offered a huge contract to a older fading defender which is the only position where the Ranger's have young talent coming through.



    Blair Betts is one of the most underrated players on the team, I can't count on both hands the number of players who should be let go before he moves on.

  • jackdonaghy

    I didn't say Fire Blair Betts. I observed that he committed a terrible penalty in front a ref last night. He's very gritty, but the fact that he made such a bone head play suggests that the team is not focused.

  • captainblackout

    Agreed and the fact that they always seem to be out of position and disorganized was a problem with the system that Renney was implementing. Not sure what anyone can do with some players obviously past their prime (Redden sticks out) and others who just can't play that well (Voros), but a new coach will hopefully at least having them playing with a little more ooomph. I hope, and I doubt this will happen, the new coach will consider changing the captain, Drury leads by example, but does not seem particularly vocal...give it to Mara or Gomez even. At least these guys are vocal presences.

  • jackdonaghy

    I agree that Drury has failed to lead on the ice, but I doubt they'll change captains if he's still on the team. Mara has played very well, but he's out for a month and he's a free agent after the season (we probably won't be able to afford to bring him back). Gomez is more vocal, but he might prefer to remain the laid back, wiseguy in the locker room.



    Hopefully, Tortorella will take more chances on offense, even if it means giving up more goals. Renney expected to win every game 2-1, which actually worked for a little while. However, it's a bad formula in the playoffs since you don't have the shootout to help you steal a win.

  • captainblackout

    Losing Mara for these crucial crunch of games is a huge blow. You're right that unless they extend his contract they'll probably lose him over the summer.



    I really have no idea what Sather was thinking, based on how bloated a few of the salaries are...Redden, Rozsival, Drury, Gomez, and Henke add up to 32.8 million in cap hit per year, how they can afford to keep any players will be a mystery to me.

  • bxbrian

    torterella? that could be interesting. i was wondering who they'd put in since they booted Perry Pearn too.



    luckily, the goaltending coaches remain. now all we need to do is find a way for Henrik to be a forward and play the net at the same time.

  • PTG in nyc

    FIRE DOLAN!!!



    We got rid of George W Bush after 8 years, lets now set our sites on the other entitled, spoiled rich son who ran something into the ground just because his father is successful.



    Sorry to mix politics and sports, but seriously, Dolan is a moron and can't do anything right. Without the NHL strike from 3 years ago, the Rangers would still be a team of overpayed hacks with no chemistry. The only reason that Dolan and Sather changed their strategy was because of the new salary cap following the strike. Getting forced to change via new regulations does not mean you deserve credit for doing a slightly better job than you used to do.

  • Papercutninja

    there was such hope during the first half of the season...

  • bxbrian

    i'm not so sure he's a totally innocent party--but he should certainly not be the last one out the door. sather's gotta go next.

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