Rangers search for answers and a win against visiting Blues
The New York Rangers are a team in search of a win and some answers. On Monday night at Madison Square Garden, they will try and snap a three-game home losing streak (0-2-1) hosting the St. Louis Blues.
Struggling at home is simply not something the Rangers did last season on their way to a 110 point campaign and a second place finish in the Metro Division. In 2021-22, Gerard Gallant’s charges were 27-10-4 on Garden ice with only 6 teams in the league having more home victories.
This season, they are 4-6-4 and just 1-5-2 at Madison Square Garden since 11/3. On Saturday, the team likely hit rock bottom by being bounced by the visiting Chicago Blackhawks by a 5-2 score.
Losing to a team that winless in 8 straight didn’t sit well with the Rangers captain Jacob Trouba.
“I think we could use a little more emotion, a little more will in our game,” Trouba said. “It’s not easy. You’re not out here to go for a twirl. It’s a hard game and you have to play it hard. There’s a lot of story left to be written. It’s not a done thing by any means but it’s gone on for a bit now. Something needs to change. There’s needs to be a little more of a pushback from within. We can’t keep doing the same thing and expect a different result.”
New York Rangers searching for answers
Gerard Gallant is under scrutiny due to the team’s lack of results and will need to turn this ship around sooner rather than later.
According to ESPN’s Emily Kaplan, owner James Dolan is paying very close attention to the Rangers situation and the head coach. “I believe that he would like for him to show more accountability,” she said.
After the loss to the Blackhawks, the veteran bench boss wanted to continue to accentuate the positives.
“I thought we played faster but we have to make adjustments,” Gallant said. “I saw more to tonight than I did the other night (against Ottawa), put it that way. It’s a team thing. It can’t be 13,14, players– it has to be 20. We’ll get out of this sooner or later.”
The Rangers practice this morning at 10:30 AM. It will be interesting to see if Gallant will make any changes to the forward lines and power play units.
There really isn’t much more he can do since the team has no adequate cap space for a shake up trade.
Here’s tonight’s game and broadcast info:
New York Rangers (11-10-5) vs. St. Louis Blues (11-13-0)
Date/Time: December 5, 2022 at 7:30 PM ET
Arena: Madison Square Garden
TV: MSG
Radio: ESPN 98.7
Blues also looking to snap skid
The Blues are looking to end a three-game slide themselves in what’s been a very rough season.
If the Rangers are a confounding team, the Blues are even more of an enigma. Earlier in the year, they lost eight straight games before rattling off seven in a row. Things appeared to be turning around, but they once again find themselves back to their losing ways.
“Everybody has to step up,” Blues coach Craig Berube said. “Right now, we’re not good. We don’t have enough people going in the right direction right now in all areas of the game.”
If that quote was presented without Berube’s name, you could easily assume those words came from Gerard Gallant.
Pavel Buchnevich will be playing his second game back at the Garden since being traded prior to the start of last season.
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–Field Level Media contributed to this article
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