The Rangers controlled play, but the few minutes they took off and the few lapses they had all seemed to lead to Devils goals.
The Rangers followed up their impressive shutout win over the Islanders with a loss to the Devils to finish their season-opening, three-game homestand. The Rangers outplayed the Devils and controlled the game for much of the night, but the few minutes they took off and the few lapses they had all seemed to lead to Devils goals. Now the Rangers find themselves needing to bounce back quickly with a two-game series in Pittsburgh this weekend.
After getting embarrassed and shut out on opening night, the Rangers bounced back with a 5-0 win over the Islanders.
After getting embarrassed and shut out at the Garden on opening night, the Rangers bounced back with a 5-0 blowout win over the Islanders. Mike Carver of the Isle Seat Podcast joined me to talk about the two-game series between the rivals to begin the season.
The Rangers couldn’t have opened the season in a worse way unless they announced a multi-year contract for Tanner Glass between taking one of their eight of penalties and allowing one of Anders Lee’s two goals.
The Rangers couldn’t have opened the season in a worse way unless the team announced a multi-year contract for Tanner Glass sometime between taking one of their eight of penalties and allowing one of Anders Lee’s two goals. The Rangers lost to the Islanders 4-0 in their first regular-season game in 10 months and a day, looking like the team that opened last season and not the team that won 16 of 22 games at this time a year ago.
Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers.
1. Yes, it was one game and the smallest of sample sizes, but that’s all we have right now: one game. After waiting for Rangers hockey from mid-March until early August and getting only three games of it, and then waiting against from early August until mid-January, and then to be treated to that type of effort, it was frustrating. I understand the Rangers are a young team and would have greatly benefited from a full training camp and preseason games, but there’s no excuse for Thursday night’s performance in which they were dominated in every facet of the game by their rival.
2. The Rangers trailed after only two minutes and 33 seconds following a Brock Nelson power-play goal that came as a result of a lazy, unnecessary Jack Johnson penalty. Johnson has been the ire of nearly all Rangers fans since the team inexplicably signed him and he had the worst game imaginable. After finally shedding Marc Staal’s ill-advised contact and being done with the two-headed monster of the Staal and Dan Girardi contracts, the Rangers went and signed another defenseman they had no reason to sign in Johnson. Johnson’s deal is only for this season, but every night he’s in the lineup is a chance someone with an actual future with the Rangers doesn’t have of gaining valuable playing time and experience. After Johnson’s painful Rangers debut, I don’t think we’ll be seeing him in the lineup on Saturday against the Islanders.
3. The Islanders took the lead after the Nelson goal and essentially ended the game one minute and 19 seconds later on a Lee goal. The chance of overcoming a two-goal deficit against a non-Islanders team isn’t awful, against the defensive-minded Islanders under Barry Trotz there’s a better chance of Ryan Strome scoring a goal without Artemi Panarin’s help. I should have put Lee on the 2020-21 NHL All-Animosity Team, but I already had captain Matthew Barzal and Andy Greene (a holdover from last year’s team). Three Islanders on a six-person team felt like way too much, though I’m now upset with myself for not including him. Lee added a second goal (the Islanders’ fourth) in the second period to rub it in my face some more.
4. If Rangers fans were still thinking of a comeback down 2-0, Matthew Barzal ended that idea. Barzal is so good. So, so good. His goal at 13:31 of the first period to give the Islanders a 3-0 lead was … well, silly. That’s the best way I can describe it. His inside-out move against Tony DeAngelo was a thing of beauty, only to be one-upped by his quick release and snipe over the shoulder of Igor Shesterkin. It’s the kind of goal only a handful (OK maybe two handfuls of players in the league can pull off), and Barzal did it so effortlessly it appeared easy. All Rangers fans should be thankful Panarin turned down more money from the Islanders to be a Ranger, or the Rangers would be dealing with Barzal and Panarin for a long, long time. Dealing with Barzal alone is enough.
5. Not only was DeAngelo undressed by Barzal for the Islanders’ third goal, proving to once again be a dangerous liability defensively, but his second-period hissy fit after getting called for a penalty led to a four-minute power play for the Islanders. I was ready for the Rangers to move on from DeAngelo, and wish they had, and the season opener served as a reminder.
6. The Rangers did to two things well in the game: fail to create scoring chances and take penalties. If the objective of the game were to produce as few high-quality scoring chances as possible and play shorthanded for the most possible time, the Rangers would be 1-0 this season. It was a miserable game and I really have no idea why I sat through the entirety of it. I guess I just missed hockey so badly I was willing to sit through a rout at the hands of the Islanders. Pretty sad, really.
7. I’m not sure you can say anyone on the Rangers played well. Adam Fox looked the best, and I don’t care that he gave up some opportunities to shoot for an extra pass, that’s who he is. Even Fox didn’t look like his total self. He was the best Rangers player only because everyone else was so ineffective.
8. It was a sad sight to see Alexis Lafrenière serving a penalty for too many men on the ice. That’s not a position any No. 1 overall pick should ever be in: serving a bench minor. Maybe fans of other teams would disagree, but no team takes penalties for too many men on the ice like the Rangers. It seems to happen every few games for them when it should rarely, if ever, happen. The sloppiest display from a team is getting called for too many men, so it was perfect that the Rangers got called for it in that game.
9. It might have been only one loss, but in a 56-game season, it’s the equivalent of a 1.5 losses. Losses can’t be stacked in this season. Three- and four-game losing streaks can’t happen. If they do, you can kiss the playoffs goodbye. The Rangers need to average about 1.20 points per game this season and have two of the Islanders, Capitals, Flyers, Penguins and Bruins miss the playoffs (and that’s assuming the Sabres and Devils will miss the playoffs). After one game, they have zero points, and if they are to win on Saturday, they will have two, which is under the 2.40 they will have needed through two games. The margin of error is going to be so thin for the four postseason berths in the East. Overall performances like the Rangers’ on Thursday can only happen a few times over the course of the regular season, and they already used one up in one game.
10. In other words, the Rangers have to figure out and figure it out fast. They will play essentially every other night for the next nearly four months, and there are no nights off as part of the deepest division of the four realigned divisions in the league. By the time I write next Friday’s Rangers thoughts, they will have played three total games and be looking at a two-game weekend series against the Penguins. Every game this season is a big game, and in their only game this season, they were as bad as they could have possibly been.
The Rangers were embarrassed and shut out in a 4-0 season-opening loss to the Islanders at the Garden.
The Rangers were embarrassed and shut out in a 4-0 season-opening loss to the Islanders at the Garden. Brian Monzo of WFAN joined me to talk about the Rangers’ loss as we try to not overreact to the first of 56 regular-season games for the Blueshirts.
I want the Rangers to be a playoff team. I think they can be a playoff team. It’s just going to take a lot for them to be a playoff team.
I was in bed fighting sleep when the Rangers lost to the Avalanche 3-2 in overtime. With news breaking about the NBA canceling games due to the ensuing pandemic, I thought it might be the last regular-season Rangers game I would see for a while. I didn’t think a while would be more than 10 months later.
I did get to see that Rangers team play again, more than four months later when they met Carolina in a best-of-5 play-in series. That series lasted the three-game minimum and after waiting 141 days for Rangers hockey, it was taken away again in four days.
Those August “playoff” games against the Hurricanes feel like they never happened. The Rangers team that showed up in the Toronto bubble looked like the Rangers team that showed up for the start of the regular season the previous October, a team which was nowhere close to competing for a full 60 minutes, let alone a playoff berth.
The Rangers ended up in the expanded postseason field because of the work they had done leading up to that disappointing result in Colorado. After beginning the New Year with a three-game losing streak in Western Canada, the Rangers began a magical stretch on Jan. 7, 2020, winning 16 of their next 22 games to pull themselves into the postseason picture. When I fought to stay awake as the Rangers tied the Avalance with 13 seconds left in regulation only to lose in overtime, I had spent more than two months nightly scoreboard watching long after my then-pregnant wife would go to bed.
After the loss in Colorado, the Rangers were on the outside looking in on the playoffs and math on the the remaining schedules of the Islanders and Blue Jackets weren’t on their side. The Rangers were going to need to win at least nine of their remaining 12 games to get into the postseason, and even that might not be enough because of the amount of overtime games the Islanders (15) and Blue Jackets (12) had played and the amount of loser points they had racked up. When the season was paused, the Rangers had 36 regulation and overtime wins to the Blue Jackets’ and Hurricanes’ 33 and the Islanders’ 32. All four teams were ahead of the Rangers in the standings.
This season will be 56 games, eight more than the last time there was a shortened season in 2012-13. Back then there were still three divisions per conference and the Winnipeg Jets were playing in the Southeast where their closest division opponent was 1,558.4 miles away in Washington D.C. (Only in the NHL.) Here are the points-per-game needed in the Eastern Conference in the eight years since that 48-game season. (I adjusted the 2012-13 standings to reflect today’s postseason format.)
In order to leave a potential cushion and not be disappointed, planning to need 1.20 points per game (the high end of the list) to earn a postseason berth would be wise. That means Rangers fans should be looking for the team to accumulate 67 points in the 56 games this season to get in teh playoffs.
Four teams from each division will make the playoffs. The Rangers’ division is the following (in order of their Eastern Conference finish from the regular season):
The East is so deep I feel like the coach in Rudy who tells the walk-on tryouts, “NCAA regulations allow us to dress just 60 for home games, which means at least 35 scholarship players are going to be watching the games from the stands.” How do you pick four postseason teams out of those eight? If you drop Buffalo and New Jersey from being playoff teams based on last season (and the fact they are the two weakest teams on paper), you still have to cut two of the remaining six teams.
Let’s say both the Sabres and Devils are eliminated. (If they’re not, this division is even more ridiculous that originally expected.) In order for the Rangers to reach the playoffs, the Rangers are going to have to average about 1.20 points per game and have two of these five teams miss the playoffs:
1. Eastern Conference runner-up to eventual champion Lightning 2. First in Metropolitan, third in East prior to season being paused 3. Third in Metropolitan, fifth in East prior to season being paused 4. Second in Metropolitan, fourth in East prior to season being paused 5. First in Eastern Conference prior to season being paused
To put it another way, the Rangers are going to have to average roughly 1.20 points per game and have two of these happen:
1. The Islanders to play like the team from the second half of last season and not the team from the first half or the team from the playoffs and miss the playoffs. 2. The Capitals to miss the playoffs for the second time in 14 years. 3. The Penguins to miss the playoffs for the first time since Sidney Crosby’s rookie season (2005-06). 4. The Flyers to go from being the best team in the league in the second half and arguably the best team in the Metropolitan in the second half to missing the playoffs. 5. The Bruins to regress from being the best team in the East last year by eight points and the East champion the season before to missing the playoffs.
I’m not cutting the Rangers. I understand the rebuild isn’t complete. I understand a postseason berth last summer was a gift and shouldn’t factor in evulating this season’s success ordevelopment in what will be a second straight unusual season. I understand the abundance of youth and inexperience the roster will feature this season. I’m still not cutting them. At least not yet.
I want the Rangers to be a playoff team. I think they can be a playoff team. It’s just going to take a lot for them to be a playoff team.
