from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

The burden of proof rests on Peter Laviolette, the eighth-winningest coach in NHL history, who has been hired by the Rangers for the express purpose of leading the motorcade through the Canyon of Heroes 12 months from now.

But the burden of proof lies equally with the top-end playing personnel that has chewed through two coaches in the last three seasons while indicting — who used that word? — both David Quinn and Gerard Gallant for deficiencies behind the bench and in the room.

Gallant walked the plank despite having led the Blueshirts to the fifth-best record in the league his two years in New York, but the athletes who came up so small in the seven-game defeat to the Devils do not get off the hook here after curling up in the fetal position three of the final four games of the series.

These players have used up their allotment of gripes. They are not going to fire another good coach and another good man. And they are not going to be let off the hook by Laviolette, hired Tuesday after a five-week search throughout which the 58-year-old was the leader in the clubhouse from Day 1.

continued