MONTREAL — John Tortorella hasn’t given up on Marian Gaborik.
If he had, the Rangers coach wouldn’t have engaged his veteran winger in a 12-minute, on-ice conversation at the end of practice Friday at the Ice House at Carleton University in Ottawa in full view of teammates.
Still, Tortorella had Gaborik – a $7.5 million forward with one goal in his last 11 games and none in 27 of 33 games – skating on the fourth line with Taylor Pyatt and Kris Newbury ahead of Saturday night’s showdown with the second-seeded Montreal Canadiens at the Bell Centre, where the Rangers haven’t won in four years.
“We had a good conversation, but that’s it,” Gaborik, 31, said Friday. “That’s all I’m going to say ... I just have to be better. I have to try to get out of this funk. It’s a frustrating time, of course. I want to contribute. I want to be better.”
Gaborik’s struggles, Tortorella’s erratic use of the three-time 40-goal scorer and the extra season on the Slovakian’s heavy contract made him a popular subject of early trade rumors approaching Wednesday’s 3 p.m. deadline. But Friday’s discussion seemed to indicate not only Tortorella’s impatience but also his intention to see at least this season through with Gaborik.
“This is not one particular player,” said Tortorella, who declined to reveal specifics of the talk. “It’s not just Gabby. You win as a team, you lose as a team. For us to be consistent, this becomes a club situation, not one particular player.”
That was the case in Thursday night’s 3-0 clunker in Ottawa, when the eighth-place Rangers (16-14-3) let down following Tuesday night’s 5-2 win in Philadelphia. Meanwhile, they slipped into a tie with the Islanders at 35 points while holding just one game in hand.
The team needs a short memory like that of rookie center J.T. Miller, a resilient 20-year-old who bounced back from several mistakes Thursday to create most of the Rangers’ few-and-far-between chances. “We don’t really have enough time to sit back and dwell on our mistakes,” Miller said Friday. “I made a couple of bonehead plays (Thursday). I’m aware of that. But I knew that I had to barrel on and had some good looks.”
Recently resigned Norwegian winger Mats Zuccarello will make his season debut on Saturday hoping to inject offense, but for the most part, after the trade deadline, the Rangers probably will look identical to the way they do on Saturday.
Brad Richards was asked whether the team knows the current roster can win based on last season's success and this year's additions.
"Well, I think that's one thing around the team is that this isn't last year anymore," Richards told the Daily News. "It's a whole different situation … I still want to win with this group. I like our group. But (these are) questions that I don't have any control over. The one thing is, it's not last year. We're so far from last year, it's not even in our brains right now."
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