‘As bad as it gets’: Rangers must regroup after being embarrassed in Boston
The only good thing the New York Rangers can say about being embarrassed 10-2 by the Boston Bruins on Saturday was that it was only one game.
The Blueshirts played a couple of clunkers in the first three months of the season (a 4-1 no-show home loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Nov. 29 comes to mind). But this time they didn’t have Igor Shesterkin in goal to keep the score at least representative, as he did against the Bolts six weeks earlier.
This time, the goaltenders (Jonathan Quick and Spencer Martin) were middling – and often left to fend for themselves. The defense, minus injured Adam Fox for the second straight game, was horrendous. The top-six forwards scored twice; the bottom six extended their pointless streak to four games.
Add it all up and the result is one of the worst losses in franchise history; they hadn’t allowed an opponent to hit double figures since a 10-2 road loss to the Dallas Stars on Feb. 6, 2009.
“We’re all grown men with pride and egos and that’s as bad as it gets,” captain J.T Miller said. “The only thing that matters now is that this should sting. … This should make you want to puke and then respond tomorrow and the next day. The only thing that matters is the response.”
It all added up to complete humiliation by a team they defeated six times in their previous seven meetings, including a 6-2 blitz on Black Friday (also at TD Garden), and left coach Mike Sullivan and his players seeking answers.
“Obviously, no one wants to go through a humbling experience like we just did,” said Sullivan, whose quest to earn his 500th NHL win in his hometown came up empty. “These guys care about what’s going on and it’s not easy when you don’t have success, or don’t live up to expectations. When that doesn’t happen, everyone feels it.”
Rangers must regroup after embarrassing 10-2 loss to Bruins
The Rangers are 0-2-1 since defeating the Florida Panthers 5-1 in the Winter Classic on Jan. 2 in Miami. Sullivan and his staff must spend the time before the Seattle Kraken come to Madison Square Garden on Monday trying to figure out how the team that played such a sharp game against the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs eight days earlier could embarrass itself by playing with so little passion and commitment in all phases of the game.
“I’m not going to sit here and point fingers on why we’re at where we’re at,” he said. “Where we’re at is because of all of us and we’ve got to figure out the solutions to try to get back on the right track and give ourselves a chance.
“Here’s what I know: We’re a way better team than we put on the ice today, and for whatever reason, it was a struggle. I don’t have the answers on why, but we’ll work with the players, we’ll dig in and we’ll find a way to play to the level we think we’re capable of.”
The problem for the Rangers is that “where we’re at” is farther and farther away from a playoff berth. The Rangers dropped all the way back to the NHL version of .500 at 20-20-6; the only team with a lower points percentage in the Eastern Conference is the Columbus Blue Jackets. The Blueshirts are 1-4-2 since the Christmas break and won just twice in their past nine games.
But losing games is one thing. Playing with so little energy and commitment that an ABC broadcast team that included ex-Rangers Mark Messier and Ray Ferraro were criticizing them is another – Ferraro said during the second period that they “looked hopeless.” The Rangers struggled to score all season, but their defense and goaltending are among the League’s best. That’s no longer the case.
“A lot of it boils down to details and commitment,” Sullivan said of his team’s recent struggles. “For a long stretch of the season, I thought we were pretty stingy defensively, and certainly all the numbers suggested that. I think we’ve gotten away from it a little bit lately.
“The other aspect of it is, we’ve played a lot of hockey. We haven’t had an opportunity to practice much, and I do think that has something to do with it also, because you don’t get a chance to get reps at it. But we’re no different than any other team in that regard.
“We’ve got to get back to being a stingier team defensively, and we can create offense off of it.”
Center Vincent Trocheck, who failed to convert a second-period penalty shot, said the Rangers must learn from the embarrassment of allowing the most goals in an NHL game this season.
“Embarrassing. It’s almost needs to be a complete reset and completely start over,” he said. “We can’t do what we just did, so it’s got to be completely different than today.
“We should be embarrassed right now, and I think we are. The solution isn’t forgetting about it — it’s learn from it, take this game, this feeling we have in our stomachs right now and want to never have it again.”
