Rangers fans worry about Dan Girardi.
They worry that the veteran defenseman, now 31 years old, doesn’t have it anymore.
They worry about his contract, too -- with a cap hit of $5.5 million, and a 2020 expiry date.
And for proof that they’re right to worry, they point to his Corsi numbers, which don’t look very good at all:
Girardi, meanwhile, knows his play is under the microscope, and he knows it hasn’t been that great this season, on the whole.
But lately, he’s been feeling better.
“I’ve got to say that for the last couple of games I’ve been feeling a lot more like myself out there,” he told the New York Post yesterday. “The beginning of the year, I don’t know what to tell you, obviously I went through a stretch of pretty tough hockey.”
Perhaps Girardi is benefiting from a reduced workload. He only logged 17:52 the other night versus Washington. It was 18:36 the game before against Toronto. Typically he’s been close to, or over, 20 minutes. During the John Tortorella years, there weren’t many defensemen in the entire league who played more than he did.
Rangers coach Alain Vigneault has seen an improvement, too, calling Girardi’s game “a lot better” of late. That contrasts with a couple of week ago, when Vigneault was not so kind, saying, “For some reason, Danny’s overall game, especially with the puck, has not been as efficient as in the past.”
Rangers fans will still worry, though.
New York is in Colorado to take on the Avs tonight.