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On January 10, GM Glen Sather accomplished what appeared to be the inconceivable by trading away defenseman Michal Rozsival to the Phoenix Coyotes in exchange for left wing Wojtek Wolski. Rozsival was dragging down an up-and-coming defensive corps that was clearly moving in a different direction than what he had hoped for. With this, there is no debating that Sather needed to find a way to rid the team of Rozsival and his atrocious $5 million cap hit. But now we look at the other half of the trade; the part that made Wojtek Wolski a New York Ranger, and we realize that he has been no prize either.
Since the trade went down, Wolski has played in a total of 32 games with the Rangers this season, and in that time has collected an unimpressive sixteen points. When he was brought here, Wolski was referred to as a pure goal scorer with a knack for the net. I'm not too sure I would consider five goals in 32 games a "knack for the net", especially since his last goal came fourteen games ago.
The 25-year-old whose hometown is located in Poland is currently a victim of a point-scoring drought spanning seven games and counting. This lack of achievement has only found him being scratched once so far, but there are more of those guaranteed to come in the near future if the same problems persist. Head coach John Tortorella has already done the job of burying Wolski on the fourth line and limiting his nightly minutes, which is usually the step before watching from the press box. He could just ask teammate Sean Avery, because no one knows that better than Sean does.
I mentioned above that the same "problems" persist. Those problems are not only the lack of scoring and point production on offense, as Wojtek has also become a slight liability defensively as well. We were warned about Wolski's abilities, or lack thereof, on defense, but early on Tortorella had the enigmatic winger playing both sides of the puck well. Wojtek was back checking, he was working the boards and all of that good stuff. But over time all of that slowly diminished and he returned to the player that was sent away by the Coyotes and Avalanche.
I feel as if Wolski is no longer a part of this team, or at least an influential part of this team. Because really, when you look at the stats, he hasn't contributed anything in seven games now. It's not like when he isn't scoring he makes up for it by playing hard in his own zone or being used on the penalty-kill or anything like that. No, when Wolski isn't particularly doing anything on offense he has no value to this hockey club at all.
It was very different when he first arrived in the Big Apple. He was in the middle of everything, he was being put in all scenarios and was even skating on the first line alongside Marian Gaborik. Where that has all gone, though, I have no clue. It's not being left out on the ice, that's for sure.
Wolski has been compared to former Ranger Nikolai Zherdev in the past and I can now vividly see why. He possesses the skill and has a gifted set of hands, but he doesn't balance out his game with effort. A lot of times you can find Wolski coasting through the neutral zone like he has not a care in the world for what is going on. Or even when he has the puck on his blade, there is no urgency or will. He lifelessly carries it into traffic which obviously is going to lead to turnovers…..repeated turnovers.
Wolski's $3.8 million/year contract extends through next season, but 2011-12 may not be spent with the Rangers if he continues to play nonchalant hockey. Every drawback in his game mentioned above is something that will encourage John Tortorella to dislike him pretty quickly. So it is either start caring and combining the prominent skill with effort so that production will come more easily, or keep up the half-hearted play and watch the remainder of the season unfold from up high in the skybox.
At this time of year, the darwinistic theory comes into play more than ever, and right now, Wolski is far from being one of the "fittest" for survival on this team.
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