THN: Rangers To Finish 13th

As Jeremy touched on Thursday, The Hockey News picked the Rangers to finish 13th in the Eastern Conference next season. Their reasoning is, well, flawed at best:

Why: Missing the playoffs on the last day of the regular season must still be stinging the Rangers and it won’t help we’ve slotted them in at unlucky No. 13 for 2010-11. Goalie Henrik Lundqvist is about the only reason the Rangers are still afloat and you’ll be hard-pressed to find anyone who believes Marian Gaborik will make it through another season untouched by injury.

This is at best lazy journalism. I do not call myself a journalist, but I at least perform research before writing posts to this blog. Yes, if Gaborik or Henrik Lundqvist suffer a significant injury, the Rangers will falter next season. That is a fact. However, ranking the Rangers that low based on a “what-if” scenario is just irresponsible and lazy. As I mentioned in the comments of Jeremy’s musings; what if Sidney Crosby is driving down a highway with Evgeny Malkin in his car, and he gets into an accident with Martin Brodeur, with Zach Parise in his car, and the accident causes a car driven by Mike Richards, with Jeff Carter and Chris Pronger as passengers, to veer off the road and hit a pole?

You see, I can make a “what-if” scenario too.

But let’s be honest, the Rangers are clearly the 4th best team in the Atlantic Division, which at best puts them as the #6 seed in the playoffs, should they qualify. It is safe to assume the top three teams in the Atlantic qualify for the playoffs, along with the division winners from the Southeast and Northeast Divisions. After those top five teams, the rest of the Eastern Conference, save for the Florida Panthers and New York Islanders (who will likely finish 14-15), is a big toss up. Any team can suffer a significant injury, which will cause them to drop in the standings. The Toronto Maple Leafs, although greatly improved, will likely finish out of the playoffs, as will the Carolina Hurricanes. Where they finish is still up for debate.

Barring injuries, it is safe to assume the Rangers will finish ahead of those four teams. The Atlanta Thrashers are better, but may suffer in net, with Ondrej Pavelec and Chris Mason in goal. The Ottawa Senators are also very shaky in net, as Pascal Leclaire will have to regain form to make the Sens a competitor. I’d rather have a potential injury concern who played 70 games last year over a question mark in net any day, so it is likely the Rangers will finish ahead of these two teams as well.

At this point, the Rangers are one of three teams battling for the final two playoff spots, along with the vastly improved Tampa Bay Lightning, and the Montreal Canadiens. At this point, those two spots are up for grabs to which ever teams wants those spots the most. Last year, the Rangers started hot, faltered for the middle 60 games of the season, and finished hot. For the Rangers to make the playoffs, they will obviously need to remain healthy, but they will need something more than that. They will need one word that has plagued this team since the lockout. One word that we have been looking for since 1994. That word: CONSISTENCY.