Life Without Gaborik: Not Pretty – Recap (Lose 3-1 to Islanders)

If last night was an accurate glimpse of what the Rangers look like without Marian Gaborik – well, that was scarier than any horror movie I've seen this Halloween week.

The Rangers were out-hustled, out-hit, out-scored, and humiliated by an Islander team that had not won a game in regulation for so long than they nearly forgot how to celebrate. In the end, it was a sad looking 3-1 defeat by the Islanders.

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And after a one game reprieve – we are officially reeling once again.

Almost as bad as the loss was the fact that Tortorella couldn't summon a better effort from his troops. I thought the one thing we'd never see from a Torts team was a team laying down on the job. You can only yell at a bunch of guys so long before you start to lose them.

The Goalies: We should have rested Lundqvist. We ended up losing anyway – so what was the point of playing him? The overwork may be contributing to the fact that he's looked good – but never awesome this year. Hank saved 29 of the 32 shots sent his way for a .906 save percentage. It was not a bad night. But Roloson, who was born in the 1960s, played the game of his season stopping 34 of the 35 shots the Rangers launched at him for a .971 save percentage.

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Special Teams: We lost in an area we usually win at. The Isles were 1 for 2 on the powerplay. The Rangers: 0 for 3. As it turned out we were also outscored at even strength – but our special teams contributed to this ugly loss.

The New Veteran Rangers were shut the [expletive deleted by Editor] out for the first time all season. With Marian Gaborik sitting out from a knee-to-knee hit by Petr Prucha – the rest of the new vets were strangely silent. Prospal: 3 shots on goal. Kotalik: 5 shots. Lisin: 1 shot. Higgins? One shot and a plus one for the night. But no goals. No goals for any of them.

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The Kid Rangers came through with our only goal. And from the newest kid of all: Parenteau, playing his first NHL Ranger game of the season – and one of the first few of his career – came through with our lone goal of the night. But where was Del Zotto and Gilroy?

The Returning Rangers also gave us a whole lot of nothing. Callahan shot it 6 times. Dubi 3 times. But no goals from this unit.

Defense on Offense: First shut out of this unit in a long long time. Was Delzy even there? No shots from the Teen Ranger.

In Conclusion I know Gabs was out and I had predicted a 4-2 win anyway. I was wrong. I'm glad I'm not a betting man, because I'd be house-less this morning.

Let's hope we can look back at this as rock bottom. Because we've lost 4 of the last 5 and at the moment, despite the strong start, we suddenly “stink on ice” (to quote Oscar Madison).

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Next Up: The Rangers one and all will be yelled at by John Tortorella at great length today. And Friday they will travel to Minnesota to take on Gaborik's former team: the Wild. Gabby will reportedly make the trip – but the Rangers are giving no further information on his right knee injury – in fact they don't admit he has a right knee injury. Let's hope Gabby's knee -and the Rangers in general - get better.