The Rangers lost to the Sabres 3-2 and have now lost four straight games, all by one goal. Their season is slipping away.
The Rangers lost to the Sabres 3-2 on Tuesday and have now lost four straight games, all by one goal. To make matters worse, it was their third straight lost in which they had a lead in the game. They blew three leads in two games in Pittsburgh and blew another two leads in Buffalo. The Rangers’ postseason chances are declining by the day, and they need to turn their season around before they no longer can.
The Rangers had leads in both games in Pittsburgh and they lost both games. With three straight losses and one win in five games, the Rangers are in trouble not even two weeks into the season.
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.
Two games in Pittsburgh and two losses for the Rangers, who now sit alone in eighth and last place in the East.
Two games in Pittsburgh and two losses for the Rangers. The Rangers blew two one-goal leads and have now lost three straight and four of five to begin the season. The Rangers sit alone in eighth and last place in the East tied with Ottawa for the worst winning percentage in the league. Things need to change and change quickly if the Rangers want to think about the postseason.
The Rangers blew a two-goal lead in Pittsburgh, losing 4-3 in a shootout. At some point, moral victories can’t be enough.
The Rangers had a two-goal lead in Pittsburgh and they blew it, losing 4-3 in a shootout. Yes, the young Rangers played well, but it was a bad loss. The Rangers have now lost three of four this season, and in their first loss they didn’t show up, in their second lost they dominated play and couldn’t score, and on Friday in Pittsburgh, they blew a 3-1 lead. At some point, moral victories in these games can’t be enough.
After the Rangers’ disappointing loss to the Devils, they’re going to have to get back on track against the Penguins this weekend, and it won’t be easy.
The Rangers should have won on Tuesday night. They controlled play for the majority of the game and had many opportunities to either take the lead (when it was 1-1 in the second) or tie the game (when it was 4-3 in the third), but they couldn’t get the one goal to change the game. The Rangers answered their season-opening letdown against the Islanders with an impressive win over the Islanders two nights later. After their disappointing loss to the Devils, the Rangers are going to have to get back on track against the Penguins this weekend, and it won’t be easy.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.
1. I should have known better. I should have known the Rangers wouldn’t follow up their impressive shutout win over the Islanders from Saturday with a strong start on Tuesday against the Devils. The Rangers still aren’t there in terms of starting games the way they should or coupling back-to-back 60-minute games and I need to accept that. I think the reason I haven’t accepted it is because of those 16 wins in 22 games a year ago at this time that made the Rangers appear to have arrived earlier than expected. But sandwiched around that magical run was a rocky, inconsistent first few months to last season and the same kind of play right before the regular season was shut down. That inconsistent effort expected from a rebuilding team showed up again in the postseason in the three-game sweep by Carolina.
2. If you take away the 16 wins in 22 games, the Rangers have been what you would expect a rebuilding team to be since the beginning of last season. Take away those 22 games and you have a 20-23-4 record (including postseason), which is in line with what you would think a team with the Rangers’ youth, inexperience and poor defense would have. Those 22 games might have been a mirage since their only “impressive” win in that span was in the first game of the 22 against Colorado in Igor Shesterkin’s debut. (They did beat the eventual Eastern Conference runner-up Islanders three times during those 22 games, but they’re the Islanders, and the Rangers owned them last season.)
3. That’s not to say the Rangers were bad on Tuesday against the Devils. They controlled play for the majority of the game and outshot their cross-river rival 50-28. But in the minutes the Rangers didn’t control the play or had lapses, the Devils took advantage every time, beginning just 32 seconds into the game on a Travis Zajac goal. That’s now a goal against within the opening minutes of two of three games this season.
4. Mika Zibanejad tied the game with a power-play goal 2:50 into the second, but then Jack Hughes quickly answered with a pair of goals in less than six minutes. After a tough rookie season (21 points in 61 games) as the No. 1 overall selection, Hughes looked like a completely different player at the Garden. He had an assist to go with his two goals, was involved in nearly every play and all over the ice. He was Matthew Barzal-like with the puck in the offensive zone and he’s quickly becoming a player who you can’t wait for his shift to end. I was hoping Hughes turned into a bust for the sake of rooting for the Rangers, but unfortunately, that’s not going to be the case. He already has six points in three games this season or 29 percent of his point total from last season.
5. The No. 1 pick this year, Alexis Lafrenière is still looking for his first NHL point, but he has looked good, when he has been allowed to look good. And by allowed, I mean when he’s on the ice with high-caliber players he should be on the ice with. That means Artemi Panarin and/or Mika Zibanejad. Lafrenière should be getting Top 6 minutes every single game to go along with PP1 minutes. That means removing Ryan Strome from PP1.
6. Strome doesn’t belong on the first unit. He doesn’t belong in the team’s Top 6. His career year last season was made possible by playing a full season with Panarin. Micheal Haley could have scored 40 points being on the ice with Panarin as often as Strome was. The power-play units don’t need balance and there’s no need to stash Lafrenière or even Kaapo Kakko on the second unit, so Strome can continue to turn over the puck or look completley out of place talent-wise with the rest of the first.
7. It’s going to be very, very bad if Zibanejad is injured and forced to miss time after losing an edge and sliding into the boards in the third period on Tuesday. He’s either the most important or second-most important player on the Rangers (to me, he’s the second-most important), and they can’t afford to navigate this shortened season against the competition of the East without him. Here’s to seeing him back in the lineup on Friday in Pittsburgh.
8. Unfortunately, David Quinn’s never-ending line shuffling coupled with his not wanting to put Panarin and Zibanejad togther unless the team desperately needs a goal in the final minutes of the third period continues. Maybe if the two were playing together for an entire game, the team wouldn’t be trailing in the third period. In the brief time the two were on the ice together at even strength in the third period against the Devils, the puck didn’t leave New Jersey’s zone. The Rangers could have that kind of offense for an entire game if Quinn would recognize what he has and what he’s wasting.
9. As we saw from the Devils (even though the Rangers outplayed them), there won’t be any nights or games off in this division. The Devils and Sabres were expected to be the two worst teams in the East, and they haven’t looked like it after a week. Both teams are much improved and both teams are going to be a problem all season. There isn’t an easy part of the schedule this season and the four straight games against the Devils later in the season is going to be the equivalent of playoff series.
10. The magic number is 1.2 points per game. That’s the number I will continue to write and talk about all season because if you want the Rangers to reach the postseason, that’s the number it’s going to take to get there (or something just below that number). Through three games, the Rangers are 2.6 points under pace, more than a full win and loser point under where they need to be. The Flyers, Capitals, Devils and Islanders have been able to hold that pace through the first week of the season and they currently hold the four East postseason spots. Sure, we’re only five percent of the way into the Rangers’ season and a big weekend in Pittsburgh could get them right back on track, but needing a big weekend in Pittsburgh with the way the Penguins just played in two games against the Capitals isn’t something that should be counted on.
