Rather than blow a lead to the Penguins for the fourth time, the Rangers overcame a deficit to win 3-1 on Monday.
The Rangers finally broke through and won against in the Penguins in their fourth try this season. Rather than blow a lead to the Penguins like they had in the first three games against them, the Rangers overcame a deficit to win 3-1 on Monday. The Rangers are now undefeated with Tony DeAngelo no longer part of the team.
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The Rangers have held a third-period lead in all three games against the Penguins and have lost all three games.
The Rangers have played the Penguins three times this season. They have held a third-period lead in all three games. They have lost all three games. The Rangers have blown every lead they have had since the second game of the season.
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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.
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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After blowing another two leads, Alexis Lafrenière scored the overtime game-winner for the first goal of his career.
The Rangers had to win on Thursday night in Buffalo. At 1-4-1 and in the midst of a four-game losing streak, they desperately needed to salvage the fourth and final game of their road trip and get two points. And they did just that. After blowing another two leads in the game, Alexis Lafrenière scored the overtime game-winner for the first goal of his career.
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David Quinn is getting moodier with each loss, and now that there have been four straight, his postgame press conferences are growing more tense.
The Rangers have now played 11 percent of their season and they have one win. One. That win came five games ago when they avenged their season-opening loss to the Islanders with an impressive 5-0 win over their New York rival. Since then, it’s been losing, losing, losing and more losing.
The Rangers’ season is in trouble. As crazy as that sounds after six games, it’s true. The Rangers’ season began on Jan. 14. There’s a good chance it could be over playoff-wise on Feb. 1.
It’s been a while since I broke down the postgame press conference from a Rangers coach following every game. It’s been eight years actually since John Tortorella gave wild, entertaining, but also outlandish postgame press conferences in what would be his final season as Rangers head coach. Quinn isn’t at the end of his leash in New York the way Tortorella was when he helped usher Marian Gaborik out of town because the dynamic scorer wouldn’t muck it up in the corners or block shots with his face. But Quinn’s seat is heating up. Rangers fans are starting to turn on the third-year coach after the sluggish start to the season coupled with his unfathomable lineup decisions.
Quinn could help himself by making simple yet logical changes to his current in-game strategy. He could remove Ryan Strome from PP1, stop dressing Jack Johnson, not shuffle lines every other shift and play Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad together at even strength. If the Rangers were to still lose with these changes, then so be it. At least they could say they were doing everything possible to try to win. Instead, they will continue on their current course, which has them in last place in the East, tied for the worst record in the league with Ottawa.
Quinn is getting moodier with each loss, and now that there have been four straight, his postgame press conferences are growing more tense. So it’s time to revisit the tradition built during Tortorella’s final season in New York and analyze Quinn’s postgame press conferences after the team loses, using the same format from eight years ago.
On the team’s face-off struggles.
“A face-off is a battle, not only with the centerman, but the flanks and the wingers, and too often we weren’t ready to compete in those battles.”
The Rangers won 30 percent of the face-offs in the game. Thirty percent! Quinn used the word “abysmal” to describe his team’s effort on face-offs and that might be a generous description. The Rangers haven’t been good enough this season in several areas, but face-offs have easily been their most glaring weakness.
On the play from the first two lines.
“Yes, we’re not getting enough from our Top 6, for sure.”
This answer is almost like a trick because no one know who the Top 6 forwards on the team are because of how frequently Quinn shuffles his lines. We know for certain that Panarin, Zibanejad, Chris Kreider, Pavel Buchnevich, and unfortunately, Strome, are in the Top 6. Filip Chytil’s injury takes him out of the conversation, leaving the other spot to either Alexis Lafrenière or Kappo Kakko. Here’s the thing: the 2020 No. 1 pick and 2019 No. 2 pick should both be in the Top 6. Only on the Rangers would only one of them be in the Top 6, and at times neither of them are.
You would think the Rangers were stacked with forwards to be unable to give Lafrenière and Kakko first- or second-line minutes. That’s poorly Quinn is utilizing his roster. Sadly, Strome is going to continue to be used as the second-best center on the team, if he isn’t any good, and Kreider is going to keep his spot based on seniority and money owed. (Once again why the team should have moved on from him). That means less ice time for Lafreniere and Kakko, the two forwards who should receive the most ice time of anyone not named Panarin or Zibanejad.
To put into perspective how bad the Rangers’ top forwards (whoever they are) have been, Phil Di Giuseppe has as many points (4) as Kreider and Zibanejad combined. Colin Blackwell has as many points (2) as both Kreider and Zibanejad, and as many goals as Zibanejad (1). Lafrenière doesn’t have a point.
I went back and looked at how each No. 1 overall draft pick has started their career since Steven Stamkos was selected first in 2008, and here is the game number each recorded their first career point.
Jack Hughes: 7
Rasmus Dahlin: 4
Nico Hischier: 2
Auston Matthews: 1
Connor McDavid: 3
Aaron Ekblad: 1
Nathan MacKinnon: 1
Nail Yakupov: 2
Ryan Nugent-Hopkins: 1
Taylor Hall: 2
John Tavares: 1
Steven Stamkos: 8
Lafrenière needs to get on the scoresheet on Thursday to tie Hughes and beat Stamkos. Otherwise he will need to score on Saturday to tie Stamkos. Even if he hasn’t at least picked up a second assist after Monday’s game against Pittsburgh, oh boy.
On the team’s play during the four-game losing streak.
“I thought for the last four nights we were skating and competing, for the most part, 60 minutes.”
If the scoreboard counted expected goals and if the standings counted moral victories, the Rangers wouldn’t own a 1-4-1 record, instead, they’d be 4-1-0. But their knack for blowing leads, allowing soft goals and collectively underachieving has lost them five of six games.
Yes, the Rangers have deserved better. They outshot the Devils 50-28 and controlled play and lost 4-3. They had a 3-1 lead against the Penguins and lost. Then they had leads of 1-0 and 2-1 against Penguins and still lost. They had those same leads against the Sabres and lost again. Some goals against have been soft, but not all of them.
It’s nearly impossible to say your team competed for 60 minutes for four straight games when you lost all four games, but Quinn did just that. Either Quinn has accepted losing or he has yet to realize he is a big reason to blame for some of the losing. (The Rangers haven’t scored a goal when his favorite player Johnson has been on the ice this season.)
On turning the season around.
“I’m still stewing about tonight. We’ll figure that out here in the next 48 hours.”
The Rangers had less than 48 hours until their next game against the Sabres by the time Quinn said he had 48 hours to figure out how to right the season. If the Rangers don’t start turning their moral victories into actual victories over the next three games, there won’t be a season to right.
Subscribe to the Keefe To The City Podcast. New Rangers episodes after every game throughout the season.