Tortorella's Cinderella Beat Up By Flyers Fellas, Avery's Rangers Want Revenge

New York Rangers new coach, John Tortorella's Cinderella team got beat up by the Philadelphia Flyers on Sunday, losing 4-2 at the Spectrum, despite throwing everything they had at them.

New Rangers Sean Avery and Nik Antropov scored and the New Yorkers hit Flyers goalie Martin Biron with 41 shots.

Avery scored his second goal in two games after earning a promotion to the Rangers top line with his energetic play in March that has revitalized a Ranger team that was called vanilla and comatose in February.

After starting the year going 10 and two, which put them at the top of their division, the Rangers endured their longest skid since 1968 and found themselves out of the playoffs. The Rangers recently halted a nine-game road-losing streak—the franchise's longest since 1965.

Around the NHL Trade Deadline, the Rangers fired their coach, hired John Tortorella, brought back Avery, traded for Antropov and Derek Morris, and went on a three game winning streak.

The Cinderella Rangers have won four out of six games with Avery and Antropov in the lineup.

Recent Ranger wins included a victory over the league-leading Boston Bruins, the last time they played at home with the Rangers fans in Madison Square Garden making enough noise to become the proverbial sixth man on the ice.

Avery and the Rangers will be looking for revenge when they play the rubber match of the back-to-back weekend series on Sunday at Madison Square Gardens in the NBC's Game of the Week.

The Rangers are executing Tortorella's game plan, attacking aggressively all the time, but got caught with their defensemen pinching a couple of times in the game against Philadelphia—it cost them two goals.

The Flyers added Daniel Carcillo to their lineup to join their enforcer, Riley Cote, and now have a fighter on all four lines, reminding hockey fans of the Broad Street Bullies of the late Seventies.

The new look Rangers avoided staged fights and penalties like a good team in the new NHL but it did not get them the win they needed in their fight for a playoff spot.

If the playoffs started tomorrow, the Rangers would find themselves in a re-match with the New Jersey Devils. Last year the Rangers beat the Devils 4-1 in the first round.

That series gave the NHL the Avery Rule for un-sportsmanlike conduct after Avery elevated screening the goalie, Martin Brodeur, to new heights, or depths, depending on your point of view.

Although the Rangers added Antropov and turned Avery into scorer instead of an agitator, they still miss their big scorer, Jaromir Jagr, who went off to be the star of the Kontinental Hockey League in Russia.

It is rumored Jagr will return to the NHL next year. The Rangers could have used him in the game against the Flyers.

The Rangers have had trouble scoring this year and need goals by the young Russian Nik Zhederev, former Vancouver Canucks captain and scoring sensation Markus Naslund, as well as Avery and Antropov and their captain, Chris Drury and alternate captain Scott Gomez.

If all those guys could each get a goal a game, the Rangers would win the Stanley Cup.

The Rangers are backstopped by one of the best goalies in the world, Henrik Lundqvist, who recently set a record with 30 wins for four seasons in a row since joining the NHL.

Let's not talk about the defense right now.

The Rangers defense needs to adapt to Tortorella's new game plan and not get caught up ice when the forwards are attacking and forechecking.

With the defense re-organized and the scorers re-energized, Tortorella's Rangers could climb out of the cellar and be the kind of Cinderella team that turns The Big Apple into a magical kingdom for hockey fans.