‘They are being tested’: Rangers must regroup after latest blowout loss
The New York Rangers struggled during the first half of the season because they couldn’t score. They’re struggling now because they can’t stop their opponents from filling the net.
The Blueshirts’ post-Winter Classic losing streak reached five games when they were embarrassed 8-4 by the Ottawa Senators at Madison Square Garden on Wednesday night. The game wasn’t nearly as close as the final score might indicate; Ottawa led 4-0 after one period and 6-0 late in the second before Gabe Perreault scored the first of his two goals.
They got within 7-4 late in the third with three garbage-time goals against the team with the League’s lowest save percentage before Tim Stutzle hit the empty net with 49 seconds left.
Ottawa, which ended a four-game losing streak by defeating the Vancouver Canucks 2-1 on Tuesday, toyed with the Rangers for most of the night.
“As a team, where do you go from here?” Henrik Lundqvist asked rhetorically on the MSG postgame studio show after the Rangers’ fourth straight regulation loss, when they’ve been outscored 27-10. “They are being tested right now.”
It’s also tough to pass any tests when you’re not ready to play and the other team is.
Vincent Trocheck took a needless holding penalty in the offensive zone at 1:33 and Drake Batherson scored a power-play goal 45 seconds later. Nick Jensen’s shot went into the net off Braden Schneider’s skate at 4:53. Brady Tkachuk beat Jonathan Quick on a 2-on-1 at 15:01 after Schneider wandered into the offensive zone and got caught, and Dylan Cozens made it 4-0 with six seconds left.
“We just dig ourselves a hole,” center Mika Zibanejad said. “It’s tough enough to win as it is in this League. You spot the other team four goals, you’re not making it much easier.”
The Rangers spent the period failing to execute, losing puck battles and playing like a group that didn’t give a crap.
“Early on this season, we lost games, but I thought the effort was there,” Zibanejad said. “I’m not saying the effort (isn’t there now), but our game isn’t. I thought we played better (and) we deserved better early on, but right now, we don’t. And that’s a tough pill to swallow.”
Rangers earn boos from Garden fans during 8-4 loss to Senators
The crowd of 17,776 wasted little time showing the Rangers what they thought of their efforts. The boos began in the first period and continued on and off for the rest of the night. As did the “Fire Drury!” chants aimed at embattled general manager Chris Drury.
Two second-period goals made it 6-0 and ended Quick’s night. The loss was his 11th in a row (0-9-2) and the second time in three games that he was lifted after allowing six goals in less than two periods. Spencer Martin finished up, just as he did in the 10-2 road loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday.
Another game, another loss – though captain J.T. Miller seemed to minimize allowing eight goals to another struggling team in his postgame comments.
“Bad first period,” he said. “”They were more ready to play. We’d like to not be down 4-0 after the first but after that we responded well. Played with some pride.
“We responded. Played pretty well after that.”
Sorry J.T — by then, it didn’t matter. The outcome had long since been decided.
Coach Mike Sullivan recognizes that the group effort his team showed for most of the first half of the season is missing.
“I think for the first part of the season, a fair number of games, I think we were a pretty stingy team with that collective effort, especially on the defensive side of the puck. I think we’ve lost a little bit of that just attention to detail and just collective play, cooperative play as a group. It’s a whole lot more difficult to beat collective effort than it is to beat isolated effort.
“I think we’re not quite connected like we were, and that’s what we’ve got to get back to.”
So does he want to see more anger from his players? More spirit? More teamwork? Yes, yes and yes.
“We’ve gone through a rash of emotions,” he said postgame. “There’s been tons of anger. We’ve run through the gamut of emotions here trying to right this thing and get it going in the right direction. We’ll continue to try to solve it. There’s no easy answers.
“We’ve got to work hard. We’ve got to work together. We’ve got to stick together. We’ve got to stay together and we’ve got to compete together. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Sullivan has some big decisions to make in goal. Quick’s excellent start to the season is a distant memory. Martin is a journeyman who got the callup when Igor Shesterkin went down with a lower-body injury on Jan. 5, with the Rangers opting to keep 23-year-old Dylan Garand at AHL Hartford rather than serving as Quick’s backup.
But Quick, who turns 40 next Wednesday, doesn’t look like a goalie who can carry a starter’s load – and Shesterkin’s return is nowhere in sight. Perhaps Garand gets the call for his NHL debut sometime soon.
The Rangers have less than 40 hours from the final buzzer of their loss to the Sens before the opening face-off of their game against the Flyers in Philadelphia on Saturday afternoon. Then it’s off to the airport for a three-game trip to California that begins with a back-to-back against the Anaheim Ducks on Monday and the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday.
No matter who’s in goal, the outcome will be the same unless the rest of the team shows a lot more energy and passion than they have in the past five games.
“We have to turn the desperation, we have to turn that into energy,” Zibanejad said. “We have to turn whatever we’re feeling into some sort of energy.”
