“We tipped a few in against Hank. He’s there for it, he’s squared up, and we’re not doing him any favors,” Chris Drury said. “They’re obviously accidental, but that’s seems like the way it’s been going since the break - guys scoring from behind the goal line, guys scoring on the goal line, just weird tips. If anything we need to start getting some of those our way.”

I counted two of the five goals (on 17 shots) against Henrik Lundqvist going in off of Rangers, Bryce Salvador’s shot from the point off Olli Jokinen late in the first period, and Brian Rolston’s goal off Dan Girardi that basically put the Rangers to bed late in the second. The Rolston goal was a killer; at the same time, the other four still would’ve won the game.

“Maybe I could be a little bit more aggressive,” Lundqvist said, “but when you think about the goals, it was tough plays. I tried to be square; somehow the puck just found a way in. I think I’m better off just trying to move on and get ready for the next game, not try to analyze too much.”

Analysis or no, the Rangers have issues aplenty heading into their next hugely important game, on Friday against Atlanta. The Thrashers - Chris Chelios’ Thrashers, that is - play the night before in Columbus, and can leapfrog the Rangers with a win. As it stands, with 15 games left for the Rangers (67 points), they remain three points behind Boston for the final playoff spot and one point ahead of 10th-place Atlanta, two points ahead of 11th-place Tampa Bay, three points ahead of 12th-place Florida, and so on…

John Tortorella seemed to see tonight’s game as a microcosm of the Rangers’ season: flashes of good stuff, not nearly consistently enough: “We played in spurts. As we’ve done through most of the year, we’ve been inconsistent - we’ve been really good at times, inconsistent at other times, and it was the same thing tonight.

“We couldn’t get the lead; we came back three times and couldn’t get the lead. I thought some guys gave really good efforts, I thought some other guys fought it a bit. It’s been this way through most of the year, the inconsistency.”

Tortorella talked in the morning skate about how he has no time to do anything but ride the players who were playing the best, and the names he mentioned included Artem Anisimov and Brandon Dubinsky. Anisimov struggled badly, and both those players finished a minus-2 on the night. As did Marian Gaborik and Girardi, who along with defense partner Michael Del Zotto really had a tough night.

Gaborik had Olli Jokinen moved to skate on his line, which may have earned another shot Friday in Atlanta. Jokinen had an interesting, up-and-down night: He hunted down his own rebound and started the outstanding passing play with Gaborik that ended in Vinny Prospal’s first-period goal, but he then had Salvador’s shot go in off his stick to break that tie, and was flat-out robbed by Martin Brodeur early in the second when he had to settle Gaborik’s pass before shooting on a 2-on-1.

“Too bad Olli couldn’t put that in there,” Gaborik said. “It would have been a different game, I guess.”

“They had a pretty good first period, but they were on the ice for a couple of goals,” Tortorella said of Gaborik/Jokinen. “It wasn’t a whole bunch as the game went on, and they’ve got to be consistent there also. It can’t be one and done; that’s got to be more consistent throughout the game.”

Here’s the proposal, which gained unanimous approval: “A lateral, back pressure or blindside hit to an opponent where the head is targeted and or is the principal point of contact is not permitted. A violation of the above will result in a minor or major penalty and shall be reviewed for possible supplemental discipline.”

Speaking of supplemental discipline, or lack thereof: in the wake of the release of this text, the NHL confirmed that Matt Cooke of the Penguins will not be suspended for his hit to Marc Savard’s head that left Savard concussed and the Bruins without their leading scorer.

League discipline chief Colin Campbell explained that precedent played into the decision on Cooke - who has been suspended twice before for checks to the head, including one this past November on Artem Anisimov. Campbell said that since Philly captain Mike Richards was not suspended for a hit earlier in the season, similar to Cooke-Savard, that cost Florida’s David Booth half the season, the league could not see fit to suspend Cooke.

Give me a break - since when do two wrongs make a right?

Campbell did say that if the rule proposed by the GMs had already been adopted, then Cooke would have been suspended, and as a repeat offender could have faced a much stiffer ban. So the timing of these announcements makes for nice PR for those looking to get a rule approved.

The particularly vicious hits on Booth and Savard have pushed this issue to the fore once again this season, after it was pushed to the fore last season. It’s well past time there was a rule on the books. Hockey is a fast game, and when players come across with their heads down in a vulnerable position, some devastating hits can happen in the blink of an eye (that doesn’t, however, describe the hit by Cooke, who had Savard lined up as he followed through on a shot). Whatever rule goes through the competition committee and onto the books next season (and it will get there), it may not be perfect, and like many rules, it will need time to mature. But with all due respect to the Brian Burke-ist camp of guarding the physical nature of the game, there are too many players being hurt too badly and not enough players being careful enough. There should have been something in writing long ago.

Marian Gaborik opened up on the issue this morning and backed the GMs for taking a step toward protecting players:

“It’s been an issue this year, guys going down and missing a lot of games, so I think it needs to be addressed,” the Rangers’ leading scorer said. “It’s just a mutual respect out there, when you see a guy in a vulnerable position it doesn’t do any good to anybody to hit him like that. Cooke, he’s done it a few times already. Just leave the guy, because obviously he can’t see you.

“I think every year or every couple of years a different issue comes up; this year it’s head shots, before it was maybe some other stuff going on. But definitely this is an issue that needs to be addressed, because guys are getting hurt. With head injuries, it’s not good. Booth missed 40 games. Those guys are top guys and you don’t want to see those guys go down. There has to be a mutual respect between players to do something about that.”