By BRETT CYRGALIS

There have been a lot of things done in an attempt to shake the Rangers from the doldrums they have entered (1-3-1 in their previous five) since starting the season 10-2-1.

There have been roster moves. There has been the head coach calling out his team for a lack of grit. There have been players talking about working harder, playing harder, and giving a full effort for 60 minutes.

That's all swell and dandy, but when it comes down to it, getting points is what matters. And getting points in the NHL is a complicated process, no matter how easy it looked in October. Let's look at what the team needs going into tomorrow night's game at the Rock against the Devils.

I like the squad Tom Renney put out there last night against the Oilers.

I'd rather see Lauri Korprikoski in the lineup than Nigel Dawes, even if Korprikoski was a non-factor, like he was last night. Dawes, for as good as he was last year, has been a liability to the team this year. He hasn't put up the offensive numbers to justify his defensive shortcomings, and plays with very little physical edge (which, considering his size, is understandable). Dawes is a good player, an NHL player, but the way this team is playing now - a soft game that lacks any physical credibility - he is not best for that roster spot.

The best thing about having Korprikoski back in the lineup is that he can center that third line which let's Chris Drury skate with some more apt offensive talent, no matter where he lands on the top two lines. The third line of Korprikoski, Dan Fritsche and Aaron Voros is a good line, a physical line, and one that can score goals when asked to. As a rotation, I wouldn't mind keeping Korprikoski and Voros together there, and letting either Petr Prucha or Dawes switch with Fritsche, depending on nightly matchups.

(And a nod to the fourth line of Blair Betts, Freddy Sjostrom and Colton Orr, who are doing everything asked of them, and more).

What is concerning is the lack of chemistry this team has shown in the last five games. For every glimpse of outstanding cohesion the top two (and sometimes third) lines showed to start the year, there has been a lack of communication recently. It's frustrating to see so much talent struggle to score goals, or even break out of their own zone, with any consistency.

Which does lead the main weakness of this team. The defenseman have been, well, let's just go with underachieving. After Wade Redden started the season looking like he would be the glue to put together all the loose pieces on the backline, his game has fallen off and the team has suffered for it. He's averaging just about 22 minutes of ice time a night, and for him to not be playing up to par - especially on the powerplay - has been a main reason this team has looked disconnected recently.

And then there's Michal Rozsival. The fans are all over him, and in truth, it's getting harder and harder to defend him. He's made some bad mistakes that have resulted in goals, and when that happens to a player that is already in the bad graces of the Garden Faithful, forget it. There's a lot of season left, and for him to been seen in a good light again, his game needs to get better - and fast.

Marc Staal also hasn't been the same player he was last year. For whatever reason, it seems like he's playing with less confidence and is not asserting himself on the ice. He's young, and he'll come around soon enough - I hope.

All that being said, even if this team hasn't shown a lot of physicality, it has shown a lot of heart. After going down 2-0 last night, they came back and really played their game to take a hard-earned point. Thing is, it shouldn't be that hard.

But winning games in the NHL is a complicated thing, and we'll see how the Blueshirts do tomorrow night against a absolutely desimated Devils team.

bcyrgalis@nypost.com

The Rangers practiced today without Scott Gomez, Wade Redden, and Colton Orr—all of whom were being treated for assorted undisclosed ailments—so it was difficult for the team to practice in any real lines.

But chances are if everyone was healthy, the lines still would have looked different than they did last night, just as the lines from last night looked different from the game before.

Does it matter that Tom Renney keeps switching up his combinations? The players I asked today mostly said no, that none of the combinations have been effective enough to merit having to stay together. But the other part to consider is that those lines aren’t given a chance to be effective when they keep getting jumbled.

Call it a chicken-or-the-egg argument. Even Renney said last night that the fact that the lines keep getting switched prevents the team having things like line meetings, or even just developing some intrinsic chemistry.

On whole, lines in hockey are overrated. I love writing about them in my blog because they’re interesting and shed at least some light on team’s strategy. But it is the rare team that doesn’t mix up its lines on a fairly consistent basis.

Still, this season has been an extreme, which is probably a byproduct of the team’s personnel overhaul over the summer. Whereas last year the team had truly unique players in Jaromir Jagr and even Brendan Shanahan who couldn’t play with everyone, this year’s Rangers are more interchangeable, which allows Renney the flexibility to move players around like chess pieces. But at some point, a team can benefit from consistency, which Chris Drury acknowledged.

“I think the goal of every player is to get on a line and stick there and have all four lines rolling and never have any changes,” Drury said. “But the reality is they do change. You just have to be able to roll with it. Instead of coming to the rink and saying, ‘I’m a center or a right wing or a left wing. You just come to the rink and say, ‘I’m a hockey player.’ And where they put you, they put you. You just have to play.”

Some notes:

Scott Gomez said he’s healthy enough to play, although he did acknowledge he’s nicked up.

The conversation today elicited memories of his classic line from last spring, “If you’re completely healthy at this time of year, there’s something wrong with you,” he said then. “That was one of my Gomerisms,” he said today.

Either way, none of the players out today are expected to miss any time.

And speaking of missing time, the Rangers will be facing the Devils without Martin Brodeur for the first since Nov. 5, 2005, a streak that goes back 30 games. Prior to that, the last time Brodeur missed a game against the Rangers was Dec. 5, 1993. I believe Brandon Dubinsky was still in diapers.

But now Brodeur’s loss is Kevin Weekes’ gain.

“He’s a good goalie,” Renney said. “He’s worthy of a starting job in this league. He did a good job for us under some tough circumstances.”

Regarding players reportedly bailing out of the locker room after the game last night, it’s true many this season have often been in a rush to retire to the players-only areas after games. But that’s been the case  after wins, and it’s true of young players as well as veterans.

The problem isn’t necessarily players looking to dodge the media since every request I’ve had to speak to a player has been met. The problem may just be a lack of the same type of commanding personalities, most notably Jagr and Shanahan, that dominated this team in the past. Drury always talks because that’s his job as captain, and others such as Markus Naslund, Henrik Lundqvist, and Brandon Dubinsky have been accessible as well.

But there are others, including Gomez and Wade Redden, who have been more elusive. A lot of that has to do with the fact that, like I mentioned, both are nicked up and are often receiving treatment after games. But on whole, there seems to be a desire by some players to try to fly under the radar.

Again, if you ask for a player, you’re going to be able to talk to him. The Rangers have always been good about that (the reclusive general manager is a different story). But it’s not like they’re going out of their way to court the media, either.

More later…

Is the Rangers' glass half full or half empty? To hear the players talk, it's half empty after wins and half full after losses like last night's 3-2 shootout defeat at the hands of the Oilers. The Rangers have won some games when they have been at less than their best, and they say so after those wins. By the same token, they have found positives in losses, as they did last night when their comeback fell short after erasing a 2-0 Oiler lead to get to overtime.

The theme is common: lucky to escape with wins despite failing to put together a full sixty minutes, and having something to build on after getting at least a point after an awful first period. But despite the words, the Rangers remain perched on that same precarious precipice we talked about yesterday -- those lucky escapes will become fewer and those desperate comebacks will increasingly fall short if they don't address their problems playing complete games.

There are two common threads in their wins and losses, all other things aside. Broken record: the power play. Last night, the Rangers took another collar, going 0-for-4. They failed to score in the first period when the power play could have negated the early goal against and gotten the team untracked. They failed to score twice in the second period when they again had a chance to equalize. Worst of all, they failed to score with the man advantage late in the third period when they could have won the game. To be fair, they had nine power play shots, but the missed the net on seven other shot attempts and, of course, failed to score.

The stats are relentless: the Rangers have only won twice without benefit of a power play goal and have only lost twice when getting one. In sixteen other games, they have won when they've scored a power play goal and lost when they haven't. And the games have been so close that the PPGs almost always make a difference -- five have been game winners, four have tied games or broken ties, two have halved two-goal leads to bring the team within a goal of tying, and three have extended leads late in close games to clinch wins.

The other common thread? Nikolai Zherdev was scoreless in the Rangers' two wins in Prague, but since then, he has contributed at least a point or shootout goal to every win but has been held scoreless in every single loss. He is certainly not the only player the Rangers count on for offense, but he seems to have emerged as the one that makes a difference. Last night, all he did was bang in his stick on the ice in frustration, once when he missed wide with a shot, once when he missed a breakout pass.

At Blueshirt Bulletin+ today, we take a deeper look at the Rangers inability to play a full sixty minutes, how they try to get back on track in those situations, and how the constant line juggling figures into it, with quotes from Brandon Dubinsky, Chris Drury, Markus Naslund, Henrik Lundqvist, and Tom Renney. Click here to read it if you subscribe to Blueshirt Bulletin and have registered for BB+ access. If you need instructions on how to access BB+, write to us at Blueshirt@mindspring.com. If you are not a subscriber, E-mail us or click here to learn how to subscribe to the magazine and BB+.

Such is the life of a depth defenseman in the NHL that Jason Strudwick can return to the city where he played all or part of the prior three seasons, appear in his 500th NHL game, and get little if any notice for it. But such is the character of a well liked player like Strudwick that he enjoyed the quiet night in his own way. Speaking of depth defensemen, has anyone seen Wade Redden lately, or has he fallen that far off the radar screen that even Dmitri Kalinin is outplaying him by a country mile? The 6.5 million dollar man has just three assists in his last 16 games and is -3 in the last two.

Game reports: Newsday, Journal News, Record, Daily News, Post, Times, NY Sports Day, NYR.com, NHL.com, AP, PA Sports Ticker, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Oilers.com. More from the Record, Edmonton Journal, Inside Shots, and the reporter's blogs -- Rangers Report here and here, Ranger Rants here and here, Blue Notes here and here, Blueshirts Blog here and here, and Game On!. Prospect Park names Chris Doyle Ranger prospect of the month, Howlings catches up with former Ranger prospect Dave Liffiton in Denmark, and Bob Crawford has the Wolf Pack Weekly at WP.com.

Here are a couple of things you don't have to bother reading: NHL.com's Atlantic Division report, which is 1700 words long, not one of which is the word "Rangers" -- every other division rival is in there, but no Rangers. And the Times's Slap Shot blog, which amply demonstrates over the past two days why we removed it from our "Rangersphere" link listing in the sidebar -- close to 7000 words in various postings, with the Rangers mentioned tangentially only twice, once in referring to Glenn Anderson's Hall of Fame induction and once in referring to Alexei Cherepanov, both in contexts that have nothing else to do with the Rangers. Memo to the Times: You're the "New York" Times, not the KHL Times.

UPDATE: From the morning skate, see Rangers Report and Ranger Rants for updates on a couple of minor injury issues to Scott Gomez and Wade Redden, along with some other interesting tidbits.

Is the Rangers' glass half full or half empty? To hear the players talk, it's half empty after wins and half full after losses like last night's 3-2 shootout defeat at the hands of the Oilers. The Rangers have won some games when they have been at less than their best, and they say so after those wins. By the same token, they have found positives in losses, as they did last night when their comeback fell short after erasing a 2-0 Oiler lead to get to overtime.

The theme is common: lucky to escape with wins despite failing to put together a full sixty minutes, and having something to build on after getting at least a point after an awful first period. But despite the words, the Rangers remain perched on that same precarious precipice we talked about yesterday -- those lucky escapes will become fewer and those desperate comebacks will increasingly fall short if they don't address their problems playing complete games.

There are two common threads in their wins and losses, all other things aside. Broken record: the power play. Last night, the Rangers took another collar, going 0-for-4. They failed to score in the first period when the power play could have negated the early goal against and gotten the team untracked. They failed to score twice in the second period when they again had a chance to equalize. Worst of all, they failed to score with the man advantage late in the third period when they could have won the game. To be fair, they had nine power play shots, but the missed the net on seven other shot attempts and, of course, failed to score.

The stats are relentless: the Rangers have only won twice without benefit of a power play goal and have only lost twice when getting one. In sixteen other games, they have won when they've scored a power play goal and lost when they haven't. And the games have been so close that the PPGs almost always make a difference -- five have been game winners, four have tied games or broken ties, two have halved two-goal leads to bring the team within a goal of tying, and three have extended leads late in close games to clinch wins.

The other common thread? Nikolai Zherdev was scoreless in the Rangers' two wins in Prague, but since then, he has contributed at least a point or shootout goal to every win but has been held scoreless in every single loss. He is certainly not the only player the Rangers count on for offense, but he seems to have emerged as the one that makes a difference. Last night, all he did was bang in his stick on the ice in frustration, once when he missed wide with a shot, once when he missed a breakout pass.

At Blueshirt Bulletin+ today, we take a deeper look at the Rangers inability to play a full sixty minutes, how they try to get back on track in those situations, and how the constant line juggling figures into it, with quotes from Brandon Dubinsky, Chris Drury, Markus Naslund, Henrik Lundqvist, and Tom Renney. Click here to read it if you subscribe to Blueshirt Bulletin and have registered for BB+ access. If you need instructions on how to access BB+, write to us at Blueshirt@mindspring.com. If you are not a subscriber, E-mail us or click here to learn how to subscribe to the magazine and BB+.

Such is the life of a depth defenseman in the NHL that Jason Strudwick can return to the city where he played all or part of the prior three seasons, appear in his 500th NHL game, and get little if any notice for it. But such is the character of a well liked player like Strudwick that he enjoyed the quiet night in his own way. Speaking of depth defensemen, has anyone seen Wade Redden lately, or has he fallen that far off the radar screen that even Dmitri Kalinin is outplaying him by a country mile? The 6.5 million dollar man has just three assists in his last 16 games and is -3 in the last two.

Game reports: Newsday, Journal News, Record, Daily News, Post, Times, NY Sports Day, NYR.com, NHL.com, AP, PA Sports Ticker, Edmonton Journal, Edmonton Sun, Oilers.com. More from the Record, Edmonton Journal, Inside Shots, and the reporter's blogs -- Rangers Report here and here, Ranger Rants here and here, Blue Notes here and here, Blueshirts Blog here and here, and Game On!. Prospect Park names Chris Doyle Ranger prospect of the month, Howlings catches up with former Ranger prospect Dave Liffiton in Denmark, and Bob Crawford has the Wolf Pack Weekly at WP.com.

Here are a couple of things you don't have to bother reading: NHL.com's Atlantic Division report, which is 1700 words long, not one of which is the word "Rangers" -- every other division rival is in there, but no Rangers. And the Times's Slap Shot blog, which amply demonstrates over the past two days why we removed it from our "Rangersphere" link listing in the sidebar -- close to 7000 words in various postings, with the Rangers mentioned tangentially only twice, once in referring to Glenn Anderson's Hall of Fame induction and once in referring to Alexei Cherepanov, both in contexts that have nothing else to do with the Rangers. Memo to the Times: You're the "New York" Times, not the KHL Times.

UPDATE: From the morning skate, see Rangers Report and Ranger Rants for updates on a couple of minor injury issues to Scott Gomez and Wade Redden, along with some other interesting tidbits.

If we’re all in agreement that the Rangers have struggled since charging out of the gates last month, what’s less clear is what exactly they’re struggling with.

Do they lack a physical presence on the backline that would make life more difficult for opponents?

Are they absent the character needed to play three consistent periods of hockey?

Do I dare ask if Brendan Shanahan is still available?

No, for the record, I’m not ready to go there, and nor should you. This most recent swoon could be indicative of larger problems, or it could just be an inevitable rough patch every team confronts over an 82-game schedule.

But the problem with any major move at this poiunt is that every other player risks feeling undermined as a result. That’s not to say the Rangers aren’t exploring other options, because I’m sure they are. But it’s doubtful any of those move would be ones that would fundamentally alter the core of the team.

A player like Shanahan, for instance, would have that impact. And even in looking fairly unspectacular the past few weeks, the Rangers still aren’t willing to take such a leap.
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And as if their on-ice problems weren’t enough, the Rangers are justifiably getting roasted around the league for seeking a compensatory draft pick for Alexei Cherepanov.

The more I think about what the team has done here, the more I think that an organization that usually should be commended for its class has shown an appalling lack of common sense, if not simple decency.

The guy taking the biggest hit on this is Cam Hope since the Ranger’s assistant GM has been the one quoted on the issue, most notably with his regrettable statement that a player who has been dead for a month “is technically eligible to be drafted again next year.”

But let’s be clear that while Hope certainly could have used more tactful language, he is only guilty of following orders from above. Just as he was in making the Rangers’ case in the Sean Avery arbitration dispute a couple of summers back, Hope is the team’s point man on all things related to the Collective Bargaining Agreement.

But it still  fell to Glen Sather to decide whether the matter was worth pursuing, and in this case, whether it was worth pursuing so quickly after the player’s death.

That may be the larger issue here. Had the Rangers broached the topic at another meeting in, say, February or March, maybe their actions wouldn’t seem so crass. But that they jumped on it while emotions were still so raw makes it seem like they had little regard for the human tragedy involved.

The Rangers are a work in progress that doesn't quite seem to be progressing, unless four losses in five games represents a unique strain of development. Once again last night the Blueshirts fell behind. Indeed, once again last night the...

Rangers fans know how much Henrik Lundqvist meant to the team's 10-3-1 start in October. On Monday, the NHL also tipped its cap to the Blueshirts goalie by naming him the league's No. 2 star for the opening month of the 2008-09 season.

Blueshirts legend Adam Graves hosted an "I am a Ranger" Youth Hockey Clinic on Nov. 5 at the MSG Training Center.