That was the Flyers' first goal of three in a span of 1:49. After Richards' goal I turned on Invincible on FX. At the commercial break I switched back to NBC. It was 5-0, Flyers. The Rangers and Tom Renney were completely at a loss. The fans serenaded Renney and the incompetent, over-the-hill GM Glen Sather with chants once reserved for Isiah Thomas.
Interesting postgame comments from Renney, who realizes the end could be near. I've been steadfast about giving Renney until the end of the season for the Rangers to make a full and fair evaluation. Renney has been the coach since 2004. It's inevitable players begin to tune out the coach, as this group has done with Renney. And Renney is with plenty of faults. His defensive system is suffocating to his own personnel. He leaves the wrong players on the ice (read: Wade Redden and Aaron Voros) on the ice during critical situations. He's never held his underachieving veterans (Redden, Chris Drury, Scott Gomez, Michal Rozsival) accountable, nor has sent them a message with a benching or a healthy scratch. Yet he'll keep Petr Prucha in a jacket & tie and refuse to tweak the system to best fit his young and energetic players.
Everyone shares the blame in this mess and the philosophy is always you can't fire the players, so fire the coach, with the thinking that a changing of the lead voice will slap new life into the team. But someone explain to me what difference Jim Schoenfeld, Renney's assistant, would make at this point of the season. The true culprit is Sather, who put together this budding disaster and has left the Rangers choked in salary cap hell. Of course, since he works for the Dolan Dummies, don't expect him to go anywhere.
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In the MMA world, UFC 95 is this Saturday in London, and I'll have features on Diego Sanchez and Chael Sonnen (fighting Joe Stevenson in the main event and Demian Maia, respectively) posted on Junkie this week. UFC president Dana White confirmed show No. 100 for July in Las Vegas with welterweight champion Georges St. Pierre to fight on the card, but in lieu of top contender Thiago Alves, a third bout with B.J. Penn may be in order.
My take: Forget this Vaseline controversy and keep the divisions intact. If Sanchez beats Stevenson, he deserves the next shot at Penn's lightweight crown, if not Kenny Florian, while Alves was assured a shot at GSP. Quick take on Penn: He may never be the same following GSP's destruction of him. Sanchez's trainer, Saulo Ribeiro, touched on this during our interview and insists his fighter can defeat Penn if they fought tomorrow.
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Meanwhile in Yankeeland, pitchers and catchers are in camp, and CC Sabathia and A.J. Burnett look relaxed and ready to compete in the Bronx. Of course, the center of discussion is Alex Rodriguez. A-Rod will address a huge media throng Tuesday in Tampa, which is hopefully the first big step in putting his sorry predicament behind him. This being A-Rod, it's never cut and dry, but my hope is by the time I'm back on the beat April 1 for the new Yankee Stadium's grand opening, more of the talk will be about baseball and less about a terrible situation that will not go away.
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