Renney on facing Rangers: "It's been on my mind''
Photo credit: AP | Edmonton Oilers center Gilbert Brule, left, checks New York Rangers defenseman Matt Gilroy (97) into the boards during the first period. (November 5, 2009)
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Nov. 5: Rangers 4, Oilers 2
EDMONTON - The auto body shop sign on Wayne Gretzky Drive was simple: "Salt Eats Cars."
In the NHL, like any other pro sport, head coaches are subject to the relentless elements of front offices as well.
So on the ice at nearby Rexall Place Thursday, there was silver-haired Tom Renney, with a few more kilometers on the tires. There he was, with blue-and-orange Oilers jerseys buzzing around, by the boards talking one-on-one with Ales Hemsky, then Dustin Penner, just as he had done with young Rangers players at practice.
Far from Manhattan, this is Renney's new landscape, under the retired numbers of Gretzky and Jari Kurri and others, where he was warned about the rush-hour traffic before games and where it takes him only 12 minutes to get to the arena from the suburban home he has rented.
Where things like costly New York haircuts ("this is $15," he said, laughing) and the thought of a Yankees parade seem like a lifetime ago.
Where the self-proclaimed Western Canada kid returned as an associate coach after being dismissed from behind the bench after seven years in the Rangers' organization on Feb. 24.
But Thursday, with his former team in town for the first time since his firing, the reminders, comical and otherwise, came flowing back.
"It's been on my mind," Renney, 54, still as upfront and open as ever, said of last night's game. "I can't fib to you. I'm really looking forward to getting it out of the way."
He first suspected that his world was slightly off its axis on Wednesday. While talking to a cluster of local media, "I felt the sock on my left leg slipping down a bit. I look down and it was Benny." Rangers goaltending coach Benoit Allaire had punked his pal.
Thursday, in a brief reunion with familiar faces, he revisited a tradition by rubbing MSG producer Joe Whelan's head for luck, but he shied away from Dave Maloney's cap. "I'm not sure what's under there," he said. He is certain, however, why he accepted the invite to return to the NHL here, without a break from the grind.
"The reason I came here was the people. I've known Pat [Quinn, the coach] and Wayne [assistant coach Wayne Fleming] for a long time, and so many others," he said.
"But New York," he said, now with his head slightly lowered and tapping his stick blade on a mat, "was one of the great experiences a man can have. I've said this before: The big thing I regret was not winning enough for Glen [Sather, the Rangers' president and general manager]. He brought me there."
From afar, he keeps tabs on unfinished business.
"[Michael] Del Zotto, he's got some real jam, hasn't he?" Renney asked. But he said the defenseman, chosen 20th overall in the 2008 draft, couldn't have helped the team as an 18-year-old last season. "He needed to spend time in the juniors, just like [Marc] Staal," he said.
He's noticed that a prospect he watched develop, 21-year-old Artem Anisimov, has been improving and playing on the third line. "You wonder if he can be more than that . . . You wonder what he and Grachev might eventually be able to do together," Renney said, referring to Evgeny Grachev, the Russian power forward with the Hartford Wolf Pack.
As much as he wanted to, he refrained from talking to Del Zotto or Anisimov or veterans left from his tenure, when he guided the Rangers to the playoffs for three straight seasons.
Why pour that salt on old wounds?
