The Rangers had to win on Thursday night in Philadelphia. They had to, and they did. It wasn’t pretty, and they did everything they could to lose, like not scoring on a penalty shot or not scoring during two minutes of a 5-on-3 or not scoring during an overtime power play or by allowing the game-tying goal with 1:14 left in regulation. Thankfully, they got two points, and maybe the 3-2 shootout win over the Flyers is the win that turns their season around.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. When the Flyers scored 59 seconds into Wednesday’s game, all I could do was laugh. In the middle of a four-game losing streak and coming off the team’s worst performance of the season, allowing a goal in the opening minute was so predictable it was comical. When the Rangers were shut out in the first period, it wasn’t a surprise, considering how little offense they have generated since their 2-0 loss to the Islanders on Feb. 8.

2. Through the first period in Philadelphia, the Rangers had scored four goals in 13 periods with only one of the goals coming from a top-six forward (Pavel Buchnevich). The Rangers still only managed two goals against the Flyers, so they now have scored six goals in 15 periods. Here are the goal scorers:

Julien Gauthier
Kevin Rooney
Colin Blackwell
Pavel Buchnevich
Colin Blackwell
Brendan Smith

3. When Colin Blackwell is the team’s leading goal scorer over a five-game span, it’s easy to see how the team is 1-3-1 in those five games. As I wrote earlier, Buchnevich is the only top-six forward to have a goal in the last five games or nine percent of the season. Artemi Panarin (5-11-16) and Buchnevich (4-6-10) are the only Rangers to have double-digit points this season, and Panarin leads the team in scoring despite having missed two games.

4. To put the Rangers’ offensive issues in perspective, Connor McDavid (9-23-32) has one less point than the Rangers’ top three scorers (Panarin, Buchnevich and Ryan Strome) combined. McDavid and Leon Draisaitl (10-18-28) have one less goal (19) than Panarin, Buchnevich, Strome, Chris Kreider, Kaapo Kakko and Mika Zibanejad combined (20). McDavid and Draisaitl have as many points combined (60) as Panarin, Buchnevich, Strome, Blackwell, Phil Di Giuseppe, Kreider, Filip Chytil, Kaapo Kakko, Zibanejad, Brett Howden and Alexis Lafrenière combined.

5. Despite countless chances every game to break out of his goal-scoring slump, Zibanejad is still stuck on one goal this season. One. In 15 games. That’s a four-goal pace in a 56-game season and a six-goal pace in an 82-game season. He’s not the only one though. Kakko has emerged as one the team’s best players in his second season, but he still only has two goals and one assist in 14 games. A 12-point pace in a 56-game season and an 18-point pace in an 82-game season. Lafrenière has one goal. That’s it. No assists. One goal. In 15 games. I didn’t see that coming from the most highly-touted No. 1 overall prospect since McDavid. (To his credit, he hasn’t exactly been paired with the best linemates for the majority of his first NHL season.)

6. The breakaway problem is a huge problem. I don’t know how suddenly become better at breakaways, but the Rangers need to. On both ends of breakaways. Their players can’t score on them and their goalies can’t stop them. It’s been an issue with Chris Kreider for his entire career, and had he been able to score on a few in the Stanley Cup Final against the Kings, the Rangers might have won that series. But it’s not just Kreider. It’s everyone. I have zero confidence in the Rangers scoring on a breakaway and zero confidence Igor Shesterkin or Alexandar Georgiev will stop one. When Pavel Buchnevich had a penalty shot on Thursday, I knew he wasn’t going to score. He put together a much worse attempt than I thought he would, but it didn’t matter, the result was always going to be the same. I was pleasantly surprised though when Georgiev held strong in the shootout. I didn’t see it going that way.

7. After picking former Ranger (I love saying that) Tony DeAngelo as the Rangers’ third shooter in the team’s first shootout against the Penguins earlier this season, David Quinn picked logical shooters this time. (DeAngelo essentially fell on his face in his attempt.) Kakko first and then Panarin with Zibanejad ready as the third shooter, if needed (he wasn’t). That’s more like it. (I would like to know who would have been the fourth shooter if it had gotten there. I would like to think it would have been Lafrenière, but I’m sure it wasn’t. Maybe I don’t want to know who it would have been.)

8. When Libor Hajek and Jack Johnson make up one-third of the team’s defensemen, it’s hard to envision the team winning. Johnson took yet another early first-period penalty (a tripping penalty 2:47 into the game), but otherwise, he wasn’t as bad as he’s been this season (though the bar was set very low). Even if the Flyers weren’t close to full strength because of protocols, it was still an encouraging effort from the defense.

9. The Rangers went 4-7-3 in the first quarter of the season, leaving themselves no margin for extended error for the remaining three quarters of the season. They will have to win two-thirds of the 42 games left, and that means something around a 28-14 record the rest of the way. The win over the Flyers takes it down to 27-14 the rest of the way.

10. I guess the one good thing is the Rangers’ season isn’t over from a playoff berth standpoint despite winning only five of their first 15 games and despite getting basically zero production from the top two lines outside of Panarin, and on occasion Buchnevich. It’s close to being over from a playoff berth standpoint, and another extended losing streak like the two four-game ones they have already had will essentially eliminate them, but it’s not over yet.

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The Rangers ended their two-game winning streak with a 2-0 loss to the Islanders. I keep thinking at some point the top two lines will produce offense, but the season is now one-fifth over and they have yet to do so. When are they going to end this drought?

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. When the Rangers lose it’s always painful. Not because they can’t afford to lose games in a 56-game season at the rate they have been (they can’t), but because it’s actually painful. Aside from the Rangers’ season-opening blowout loss to the Islanders, they don’t just lose, they have to lose in the most excruciating way possible. Whether it’s trailing early and coming back only to fall one goal sort of completing the comeback, or blowing a two-goal lead, or blowing a third-period lead, or having a chance to break open a 0-0 game with breakaways and odd-man rushes and failing to do so only to eventually lose, the Rangers have mastered the art of losing in the worst ways in 2021.

2. You can place blame all around the team for their 4-5-2 start to the season, (well, it’s no longer a “start” since 20 percent of the season is over), however, the majority of the blame has to be placed on the top two lines. Within that blame, David Quinn takes partial blame for his top-six combinations which change by the shift and rarely ever include the No. 1 overall pick from the 2020 draft or the No. 2 overall pick from the 2019 draft. Instead, spots are filled by veterans as if it’s a high school team and seniority matters. Quinn keeps using the same players in different combinations and he keeps getting the same result: a lack of offense.

3. Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad are always locks for the top six and nothing should ever change that. (They should be on the same line, but I have learned to semi-accept that is never going to happen on a permanent basis, and will only happen when the team trails in the third period and desperately needs a goal.) After them, the other four spots could go to anyone at anytime under Quinn.

4. Pavel Buchnevich has earned one of the spots with the way he has played this season. That leaves three spots. Unfortunately, the Rangers’ lack of a second center with Filip Chytil out means either Ryan Strome or Brett Howden has to take one of the three remaining spots by default. That leaves two spots.

5. One of them has to go to Alexis Lafrenière. The kid did things in the Q that only Sidney Crosby has. He was the most anticipated No. 1 pick since Connor McDavid, and he’s playing third-line and second-power play minutes. How is that responsible? How has no one from the front office stepped in and override Quinn’s idiotic usage of the star in waiting? The other needs to go to Kaapo Kakko. The No. 2 pick from the 2019 draft needs to be allowed to show what made him the second overall pick.

6. If it were up to me, the lines at full strength would be:

Panarin-Zibanejad-Buchnevich
Lafrenière-Chytil-Kakko
Kreider-Strome-Gauthier
Lemieux-Howden-Di Giuseppe/Blackwell/Rooney

7. Those lines make winning a priority and also help with the ongoing rebuild, which is the line Quinn needs to toe. If he’s coaching for results right now then he’s doing a horrible job and should be replaced. If he’s coaching for the future and to progress the rebuild then he’s doing a horrible job and should be replaced. The Rangers aren’t winning (they have lost seven of 11 games) and they are stunting the development of their young players by giving them limited ice time and close to no special teams time.

8. Quinn needs to pick a side or he won’t be the Rangers coach at some point in 2022. Barring an internal or cultural issue, the Rangers could finish in last place and Quinn will be back for 2021-22. This season can easily be categorized as yet another rebuilding year and a weird shortened season with no training camp and every other odd element this year. But next year, results will matter. Next year, the Rangers will have to have arrived. Quinn will have been given three years to figure it out, and if he doesn’t have it figured it out next year, that will be it for him.

9. Quinn could do himself a favor if he were to stop relying on players who aren’t getting it done. At times, he has shown he can make the intelligent move like removing Kreider from the top two lines or playing Lafrenière with one of the two already superstars or removing Strome from the first power play. Eventually, though, he reverts back to his comfort zone, which is playing veterans, letting Lafrenière and Kakko waste away on the bench while they watch Kreider and Strome turn the puck over the power play and doing things like pairing Jack Johnson with Tony DeAngelo in a real game.

10. The Rangers’ next three games are against the Bruins (twice) and Flyers. These three games over the next five days will be an enormous test for this Rangers team. Last season, the Rangers made their miraculous run with 16 wins in 22 games against non-playoff and mainly non-contenders. Of the 16 wins, only the first win against the Avalance in Igor Shesterkin’s NHL debut was against a truly elite opponent. (Yes, the 2019-20 Rangers beat the crap out of the Islanders and they went to the Eastern Conference Finals, but that Islanders team overachieved in a weird tournament four months afer the season was stopped.) The East doesn’t allow for any soft parts in the Rangers’ schedule this seaosn. If they want to go on the type of run they did a year ago at this time, they will need to do it against the league’s best, and that starts on Wednesday.

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The Rangers have quietly won two of their last three, picking up five of a possible six points, and it’s been done quietly because the much-maligned Tony DeAngelo was waived by the team this week.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. The Tony DeAngelo saga has come to an end and that end is that “he will not play another game for the Rangers” as Jeff Gorton said during Monday night’s press conference. I didn’t want the Rangers to sign DeAngelo in the offseason and now I’m sure they wish they hadn’t either. Gorton seems to think the Rangers might be able to find a team willing to trade for DeAngelo, but which team is going to do that? As a 25-year-old defenseman coming off a 53-point season in 68 games no team wanted to trade for him in the offseason. No team wanted to claim him off waivers. Now with another blemish on his resume, which is full of a wide range of disciplinary issues, why would any team want to pay anything close to his full salary or give up something in return to get him even if that something is a case of half-used rolls of clear tape?

2. DeAngelo had problems in the OHL. He had issues in the AHL. The Lightning moved on from him before he ever played for them despite being a first-round pick. The Coyotes were willing to give him to the Rangers. The Lightning were dumb to draft him as high as they did. The Coyotes were dumb enough to trade for him, and so were the Rangers. Now the Rangers are going to need to find another team dumb enough to think they can be the one’s to fix DeAngelo, even though it’s clear he can’t be fixed. It won’t be easy, and it will likely be near impossible. DeAngelo’s owed money will be the latest dead money for a team that can never clear their dead money.

3. DeAngelo was scratched in the second game of the season for taking an unnecessary penalty and an unsportsmanlike penalty on top of the unnecessary penalty in the first game of the season. After the Rangers dominated the Islanders with DeAngelo scratched, David Quinn kept the same lineup for the third game of the season. The Rangers lost, and DeAngelo was back in the lineup for the fourth game. According to Gorton, DeAngelo was so upset by being scratched in back-to-back games that he couldn’t get past it. What does that mean? Would he make daily remarks to Quinn? Was he being disruptive in the locker room and to his teammates? Gorton said he told DeAngelo he had one strike left as a Ranger. Then came the “altercation” after Saturday night’s loss and now DeAngelo is sitting at home and no longer a part of the team.

4. There’s more to this story. There has to be. I know Gorton and John Davidson did their best to keep their press conference answers to clichés and vague responses, but the entire timeline doesn’t add up. The Rangers gave DeAngelo a two-year deal, then two games into the two-year deal the Rangers became unhappy that DeAngelo was unhappy with being scratched (as any player would be), and then they kicked him off the team following the “altercation” with Alexandar Georgiev.

5. Teammates fight. It happens and it’s usually resolved. Very rarely does it end with a player being removed from the team. For this situation to end with the extreme of DeAngelo being waived, either the altercation was much more serious than anyone is leading on, or DeAngelo had more serious issues this season than just being upset about being scratched. The Rangers are trying to make it out to be that DeAngelo was unhappy with being scratched and then made a comment to Georgiev following a frustrating loss, so they removed him from the team. It doesn’t add up. There’s definitely more to the story.

6. DeAngelo is at times very good offensively. I don’t want to refer to him as an offensive defenseman because that would insinuate that he plays defense. He’s a liability in his own zone, and the Rangers’ organizational defensive depth is a strength, making DeAngelo expendable. He was expendable in the offseason as well, but they foolishly brought him back. He’s not good enough to justify his on- and off-ice issues, and with three organizations having already given up on him in less than five years, it’s not unreasonable to think he has played his last game in the NHL.

7. The Rangers are undefeated in the post-DeAngelo era. They finally broke through against the Penguins with a 3-1 win after losing their first three games to their East rival. Not only did the Rangers lose their first three game this season against the Penguins, they did so in excruciating fashion, blowing third-period leads in all three games. The Rangers could easily have eight points from games against the Penguins, and instead they only picked up four.

8. With wins in two or their last three games and having earned five of aa possible six points, the Rangers appear to be headed fin the right direction. They still have a lot of work to do to erase their awful 1-4-1 start, but at least their season isn’t buried the way it would have been if these last three games had gone differently.

9. Quinn recently said he would rotate Igor Shesterkin and Alexendar Georgiev each game in what it one of the most ill-advised decisions from the head coach who has made countless ill-advised decisions during his Rangers tenure. This isn’t youth hockey. You can’t be setting the lineup days or weeks in advance. If Quinn sticks with his plan, that means Shesterkin (who looked like Henrik Lundqvist in his prime on Monday night) would back up Georgiev (who allowed five goals on Saturday and has allowed 12 goals in his last three starts) on Thursday. That can’t happen. If Georgiev stats on Thursday against Washington, it would be the most egregious decision Quinn has made as Rangers head coach, and he’s only a little over a week removed from pairing DeAngelo with Jack Johnson in a game.

10. Despite the last three games, the Rangers are still at the bottom of the East with eight points in nine games. They are 2.8 points off the needed 1.2 points-per-game pace likely needed to reach the postseason. They will get somewhat a break after Thursday’s game against the Capitals because the Devils’ season has been momentarily paused. That means Thursday’s game against the Capitals will be the only game the Rangers play in a week. There can’t be a letdown performance.

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The Rangers ended their four-game losing streak, the best prospect in the franchise’s history finally scored a goal and David Quinn began to undo some of his idiotic lineup decisions. It was a great night for the Rangers in Buffalo on Thursday to end their four-game road trip.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. Alexis Lafrenière went pointless in the first six games of his career. The 2020 No. 1 overall pick had opportunities to score his first NHL goal, but couldn’t catch a break. He couldn’t even luck his way onto the scoresheet through a secondary assist. The only time Lafrenière’s name had been written on the scoresheet was in the season opener when he served a bench minor for too many men on the ice. Not exactly the way the most highly-touted first pick since Connor McDavid had likely envisioned his professional career starting.

Maybe it was having not played in an actual game in nearly a year, but six games is most likely the longest Lafrenière has ever gone in any level without a point in his life.

2. On Thursday, in the seventh game of his carer, it looked like that streak would reach seven. Lafrenière was held scoreless in regulation and was coming to the end of a very long overtime shift. With just over two minutes left in overtime, it wasn’t certain he would get another one. But then Colin Blackwell forced a turnover from Jack Eichel in the neutral zone, picked up the puck and skated in 2-on-1 with Lafrenière. Blackwell gave him a perfect pass that Linas Ullmark was unable to slide across in time to defend and Lafrenière put it in the back of the net. Goal No. 1 with a great call from Sam Rosen.

“He scores! His first NHL goal! Alexis Lafrenière wins it in overtime! What a goal! What a moment for the No. 1 Rangers draft pick!”

3. That goal might have saved the Rangers’ season. If the Rangers were to lose again, they would be 1-4-2 and looking at two games in the next four days against the Penguins. The season was already spiraling in the wrong direction after four straight losses and it could have spiraled out of control with a bad weekend against the Penguins who are coming off back-to-back losses to the Bruins.

4. I expect Lafrenière to now go off, the way I thought he would go off right from the start of the season. Now that he no longer has a goose egg and no longer has the pressure of being a pointless No. 1 pick, I think he will go off. Especially if he’s playing with either Artemi Panarin or Mika Zibanejad. Maybe he will finally get a chance on PP1. After Panarin and Zibanejad, he belongs on the unit more than anyone on the team.

5. The Rangers don’t have a problem getting a lead in a game, but they have a huge problem when it comes to holding leads. Here are the leads the Rangers have blown this season.

Game 4: 3-1
Game 5: 1-0
Game 5: 2-1
Game 6: 1-0
Game 6: 2-1
Game 7: 1-0
Game 7: 2-1

6. Aside from the second game of the season in which the Rangers took a 1-0 lead over the Islanders and went on to win 5-0, they have blown every lead this season. It’s astonishing. It wouldn’t be a problem if the Rangers were good at erasing deficits and forcing other teams to blow leads, but they have been unable to do that. They couldn’t overcome trailing in the season opener. They couldn’t come all the way back against the Devils. Once they blew leads to the Penguins and Sabres, they went on to lose.

7. Zibanejad is going to start scoring soon, right? The league’s best goal scorer after the New Year last season has one goal (and only one assist) this season. He has less points than Filip Chytil, who has missed two games, Colin Blackwell, who has only played in three games, and Phil Di Giuseppe, who plays a fraction of the time Zibanejad plays. It’s pretty remarkable the Rangers have won in expected goals in the majority of their games given the lack of production from their top two lines. Only Panarin (3-5-8) and Pavel Buchnevich (2-4-6) have numbers representative of Top 6 forwards this season. Zibanejad (1-1-2), Chris Kreider (2-0-2) and Ryan Strome (2-0-2) have all underachieved.

8. David Quinn finally started to take advantage of easy wins and the Rangers won a game. It’s not that they necessarily won on Thursday because of the his moves, but they won, which is more than you can say for the last four games and five of the first six games this season. The decision to remove Strome from PP1 was overdue. Pushing Kreider to the third line was as well. Now it’s time to give Lafrenière PP1 time rather than Tony DeAngelo and not shuffle the lines multiple times per period per game. Quinn is getting closer to making logical lineup and personnel choices, he’s just not all the way there yet.

9. It might be “early” to worry about the lack of offense from those players, except it’s really not in a 56-game season. The Rangers play four games in the next eight days (Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, Washington, New Jersey) and at the end of play next Saturday, the season will be 20 percent over. One-fifth of the season will have been played at the end of next week. That seems crazy, but it’s true.

10. The Rangers had to win on Thursday in Buffalo. They had to. They couldn’t fall to 1-5-1 or 1-4-2 with 12.5 percent of the season having been played. They had to salvage the last game of their four-game road trip. They had to end their four-game losing streak, and they did just that. Now they need a winning streak. They need to do what to the Penguins in New York what the Penguins did to them in Pittsburgh last weekend. They need to start stacking wins the same way they just stacked losses. Winning cures everything and for now, Thursday’s win is the cure until the puck drops on Saturday night.

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The Rangers had leads in both games in Pittsburgh and they lost both games. They blew a two-goal lead on Thursday and two one-goal leads on Sunday. With three straight losses and one win in five games, the Rangers are in trouble not even two weeks into the season.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.

1. In a week, we might know if the Rangers will have a season. They have currently lost three straight and four of five and are now headed to Buffalo for two games followed by two against the Penguins at the Garden. At the end of next Monday’s game against the Penguins, the Rangers will have played nine games, or 16 percent of their season.

2. Maybe the front office isn’t evaluating David Quinn and his team on wins and losses this season, in what should be the last rebuilding season for this roster. Maybe it’s still only about experience and development for the youngest team in the league. A bad week against the Sabres and Penguins and gaining experience and developing will be all the Rangers have to play for this season.

3. That’s not an exaggeration. I wrote (blogs) and spoke (on the podcast) at length before the season and in the first week of it about the importance of every single game, and continuously brought up the magic number of 1.2, which is the amount of points per game the Rangers need to reach the playoffs. Through five games, they have 3, when they need to have 6. They are in last place in the East and tied with Ottawa for the worst win percentage (.300) in the NHL.

4. Joe Micheletti continues to praise the Rangers in each broadcast about how good they look. Looking good while losing is still losing, and the Rangers have done that in all but one game. Outshooting the Devils 50-28 is nice, but shots don’t determine points in the standings. The youngest team in the league having leads in both games in Pittsburgh against a team in a Penguins team in a win-now window is nice, but blowing the lead in both games and losing both games isn’t impressive.

5. Micheletti would be better off saying “some Rangers have looked good” because that’s more accurate.

Here are the Rangers who have looked good this season:

Pavel Buchnevich
Filip Chytil
Phil Di Giuseppe
Adam Fox
Kaapo Kakko
K’Andre Miller
Artemi Panarin

6. That’s it. Mika Zibanejad has one goal. Alexis Lafreniere doesn’t have a point in what has to be the longest pointless streak at any level for the No. 1 pick. Jack Johnson … why even bother. Jacob Trouba and Ryan Lindgren have been inconsistent. Tony DeAngelo has been awful. Chris Kreider hasn’t been good and neither has Ryan Strome. Igor Shesterkin is giving up goals from the half-wall and hasn’t won a game, and Alexandar Georgiev erased his shutout with a disaster against the Devils. The fourth line hasn’t necessarily been bad, but they also haven’t done anything special, unless you count Colin Blackwell accidentally scoring.

7. I guess the one thing you could say is the Rangers could have won every game except their opening night embarrassment despite all of the issues and underachievers on the roster. Unfortunately, that’s not going to put four games back on the schedule and make it easier for the Rangers to reach the postseason.

8. The David Quinn Fan Club is dwindling by the day. It’s either this year or next year when results will matter to the front office, and if it’s this year, Quinn better figure it out and fast. I do believe the 2021-22 season will be when Quinn is finally evaluated on the team’s success in the standings, so he has 51 games (and possibly some playoff games) to learn how to win at the NHL level.

9. Here’s some advice for Quinn: Stop waiting until you desperately need a goal until you pair Panarin and Zibanejad; Stop playing Strome on PP1; Don’t play Johnson, but if you need to in the event of an emergency, never pair him with DeAngelo; Give Lafreniere as much ice time as possible, and Kakko too. These are all very simple things that could instantly begin to translate into wins, yet Quinn continues to make winning even harder than it already is.

10. At 1-3-1, the Rangers have 3 points and will need about 64 points over the next 51 games to make the playoffs. That’s now 1.26 points per game, up 0.06 from the start of the season. They will need to go something like 30-17-4 the rest of the way to reach the postseason. It’s still doable, but they can’t continue to stack losses or it will be impossible be a Top 4 team in the East. The all-division schedule won’t allow for the Rangers to go on the kind of run they want on in January, February and early March of last year. These next four games could be the season.

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