Where is Mayhem Miller When You Need Him?

At first it was sad to see Rick Carpinello write this over at Ranger Reports:

"You should know that Tortorella answered only three questions, because by now nobody wants to be shouted down when they ask something he won’t answer."

Then I got to thinking that what the New York Ranger beat reporters need is to contact Jason "Mayhem" Miller of MTV's Bully Beatdown show to deal with their post game new conference issues. We could get Larry Brooks of the Post, Andrew Gross of the Ranger's Rants and Steve Zipay of Newsday to join Carpy trying to get Tortorella to answer their questions.

It would make a laugh fest watching the beat reporters telling their story of the "bully" John Tortorella and how he makes their lives miserable. Cmon picture any one of them telling the MTV audience how badly John Tortorella needs to be taught a lesson in the cage and would "Mayhem"please help them out.

Last year when Tortorella had been just hired, his "act" was viewed as a welcome relief by Ranger fans who were turned off by Tom Renney's refusal to publically call out his players. In all honesty the "act" in my eyes was Tortorella's way of avoiding accountability for why the team is even worse off today than they were under Renney.

Yes I was a Tom Renney supporter; to this day I felt that the players threw their coach under the bus (Scott Gomez I will never forgive) and for that Tom Renney paid with his job. I will not bother telling you guys what you already know where the blame really lies but can anyone really believe that this season's team is better than last season's?

Well let us look at the numbers then; the Rangers after the loss to the Pens are now 24-22-7 good for 55 points. Last season after 53 games the Rangers were 29-20-5 which was good for 63 points.

See Tortorella's "act" in my book has been designed so the beat reporters stop asking the real questions that he knows he can not answer. This Ranger team has a very good chance of not making the playoffs this season; a possibility that really will be made worse by the fact that this year's Eastern Conference is very weak.

Tortorella's performance last week with Larry Brooks was just that designed to deflect attention from the problems this Ranger team has and Tortorella's inability to solve them. Even the other beat reporters will quietly acknowledge that nobody really likes Brooks but the question that Brooks was trying to ask was also the same one that Andrew Gross was also trying to ask.

"And Brooks did nothing in that sequence to instigate. He asked a proper question, in fact both he and I started to ask the same question at the same time and he got his out while I stopped halfway through just so the question could get asked. Which was, should somebody have stepped in while Gaborik was being hit? In fact, Tortorella was asked that three times. But instead of saying no comment or I’m not answering that, Tortorella made it personal. That shouldn’t be the case regardless of what, in Tortorella’s mind, sparked that reaction."

As Carpy pointied out that, Tortorella answered just 3 questions after the Ranger's loss to the Penguins when there were plenty of questions that should have been addressed like when is Henrik Lunqvist going to get some rest?

Henrik Lundqvist is already projected to play 71 games not including his expected appearances with the Swedish Olympic team. Remember Henrik Lundqvist complained about how tired he was after the Rangers were eliminated by Capitals?

How about how the Rangers just can not put together a complete game? How about a consistent effort instead of win a few, lose a few? We could ask why Tortorella can't let lines gel and develop some chemistry?

Thanks to the Tortorella "act" the attention is being deflected away from issues that Rangers really do not want to see aired in public. We all know about the bad signings of Donald Brashear and Alex Kotalik but other moves are deserving of questioning.

Trading Lauri Korpikoski for Enver Lisin was a bad move as Lisin may have more points than Korpikoski does but his defense is nowhere near what Korpikoski does. We will not even wonder how come Prucha is productive for the Coyotes.

How does Erik Christensen go from waiver pickup to first line productive duty to healthy scratch? It goes to how Tortorella uses or should we say not use his players to get the most possible production.

Here is a question that we would like to ask the beat guys: is it me or did Tortorella turn up the tension level after the NHL memo on profanity? It sure looks that way and sadly it appears the beat guys are paying for the NHL's own memo.

Oh and memo to the coach: since others are telling their story here is mine: I grew up in Jackson Heights during the 1970's coke years. I got my share of getting my butt kicked just as much as I got in my share of winning fights.

I also earned the right to wear the US Army's cord of blue for the Infantry. I know what it is like to be the supposed "tough guy" and the victim of the bully and you want to know what that really means?

Nothing absolutely nothing as to be honest the beat reporters are really nice guys. You are not and in the end as even I learned the hard way, the "bad guy" winds up losing in the end

(Mayhem Miller courtesy of MTV)