Rangers – Page 17 – Keefe To The City

Jan 20, 2020

A Season-Crushing Loss for the Rangers

The Rangers’ last-minute 2-1 loss to the Blue Jackets might not have actually been a season-ending elimination game, but it sure feels like it was.

I could feel it coming and eventually it came. Turnover after turnover led to scoring chance after scoring chance for the Blue Jackets in the final minutes on Sunday night at the Garden. The Blue Jackets began to control play as the minutes ticked down, and while the Rangers looked content with hanging on for one point and taking their chances in the post-regulation skills competition, the Blue Jackets played as though a regulation win was worth a third point.

I had spent most of the night envisioning Igor Shesterkin earning a shutout in his third career game and improving to 3-0 in the NHL, as Rangers fans began to seriously think about the playoffs. The Rangers were just under 14 minutes away from winning for the fifth time in six games and from being on the right end of the four-point swing David Quinn has frequently talked about for Metropolitan games. I started to think this team might really go on the sort of run that would land them in the postseason not even a calendar year after the organization looked like it might not be competitive for a decade. But while I was daydreaming about the Rangers picking up a Chance card instructing them to advance to GO while avoiding all the houses and hotels and obstacles that come with a complete tear-down rebuild, the Blue Jackets quickly woke me up.

Oliver Bjorkstrand beat Shesterkin on an unassisted goal 6:08 into the third and I was awake. Following the tying goal, the Blue Jackets flipped a switch and took over the game, and it only felt like a matter of time until the Rangers were trailing. That time came when the Rangers allowed an inexplicable 3-on-2 with 26.5 seconds to play and Bjorkstrand ripped one past Shesterkin’s glove. Quinn called timeout, only delaying the inevitable of the last 13-plus minutes of play, as the Rangers eventually lost 2-1.

It was a deflating defeat. The kind where no one is talking on the way out of the building and the kind where you sit on your couch and end up watching MSG for hours because you don’t feel like moving to get the remote because you don’t feel like moving to do anything. It might not have actually been a season-ending elimination game, but it sure feels like it was.

I knew how hard it was going to be for the Rangers to make the playoffs before the season began. I knew how hard it would be after their five-game losing streak in October, three-game losing streak in December and three-game losing streak to end 2019 and begin 2020. They had played too much .500 hockey in between their losing streaks and hadn’t put together the type of extended winning streak they would need to make up the point differential in the standings. It’s why I wrote in the most recent Thursday Thoughts how it would likely take a 23-10-4 finish for them to make the playoffs, and even then, with 98 points, it still might not be enough.

But over the last two weeks, the Rangers started to put a dent into the nearly improbably math suggesting they wouldn’t play an 83rd game for the third straight season. Wins over Colorado and New Jersey and back-to-back wins over the Islanders sandwiched an expected loss in St. Louis, and by acheiving wins in four of five and earning eight of a possible 10 points the loss column had barely budged as the team started to make up ground on the wild card. Then Sunday night happened. After getting 11 goals of support in his first two NHL starts, Shesterkin experienced a game right out of the Henrik Lundqvist era in which the Rangers couldn’t find the back of the net, and couldn’t even hang on for at least one point in the final minute.

After beating the Islanders at the Coliseum, the Rangers’ needed record improved to 22-10-4, but that loss to Columbus hurt, and it hurt bad. The path to the postseason was never exactly clear, especially since after the team’s 10-day layoff, they will play 34 games in 65 days. Asking the youngest team in the league to essentially play .667 hockey for the final two months of the season when some of their young core will have already played more hockey in a single season than they ever have before just isn’t reasonable. Now with the last-minute loss, the only way to the postseason is with a single-digit amount of regulation losses the rest of the way with an adbundance of games against the league’s best still to be played.

This season was supposed to be about experience and development and progress for the rebuild. It was never supposed to be about wins and losses and points and the playoffs. After Sunday’s loss, the Rangers are one loss closer to making sure it’s not.

Podcasts • Rangers

Jan 16, 2020

Rangers Podcast: Rivalry Returns to the Coliseum

Mike Carver of the Isle Seat Podcast joined me to talk about the rivalry and the current and future state of both teams.

After the Rangers blew out the Islanders at the Garden, the teams still have two games to play against each other in the next six nights. The next meeting is on Thursday at the Coliseum with two more Metropolitan points the Rangers desperately need on the line.

Mike Carver of the Isle Seat Podcast joined me to talk about the first meeting between the Rangers and Islanders, the Rangers rebuilding in the New York market, Artemi Panarin choosing the Rangers, Barry Trotz’s style of play, watching former Islander Ryan Strome break out with the Rangers and how far the Islanders can go in the playoffs with their current roster.

Jan 16, 2020

Rangers Thursday Thoughts: I’m Thankful Artemi Panarin Isn’t an Islander

The Rangers won two out of their three games over the last week, but they’re going to need to continue to play at that same pace for the rest of the season to turn a rebuilding season into a playoff season.

A very productive week for the Rangers as they went 2-1, winning both home games and losing on the road to the defending champion Blues. It’s going to take winning two out of three for the rest of the season for the Rangers to change a rebuilding season into a playoff season, but they have set themselves up to at least have a chance at playing past Game 82.

Here are 10 thoughts on the Rangers as usual.

1. Monday night’s win over the Islanders was very close to not happening. Not because of anything that happened in the actual game, but because of what happened last summer when reports started to come out on June 30 that Artemi Panarin was going to sign with the Islanders. Those reports thankfully turned out not to be true as Panarin used the Islanders as leverage, eventually signing with the Rangers and leaving about $1 million per season on the table to be on the Rangers side of the rivalry.

Panarin showed Islanders fans what could have been in the first meeting between the two teams with a five-point night in the Rangers’ 6-2 win. Those five points now have him on pace for 122 points, one point less than Jaromir Jagr’s Rangers record.

Here are the Rangers’ points leaders for the last six full seasons since the lockout-shortened season:

2018-19: 74 (Mika Zibanejad)
2017-18: 53 (Mats Zuccarello)
2016-17: 59 (Mats Zuccarello)
2015-16: 61 (Mats Zuccarello)
2014-15: 69 (Rick Nash)
2013-14: 59 (Mats Zuccarello)

Panarin has 26 goals and 41 assists and his 67 points have already passed the full-season totals for four of those six seasons. There’s a very good chance by next week’s Rangers Thursday Thoughts that he has passed all six. It’s very rare that any free-agent signing in any sport works out, but the first year of Panarin couldn’t possibly be going any better than it is.

2. When Matthew Barzal is on the ice, I’m scared. I’m not scared at the level of Alexander Ovechkin or Sidney Crosby or Nathan MacKinnon or Connor McDavid, but I’m still scared, and I’m even more scared when Barzal is on the ice in 3-on-3 overtime. There was a very real possibility Rangers fans would have had to spend the next seven-or-so seasons worrying about not only Barzal on the ice, but Panarin on his wing at the same time. It makes me nervous even thinking about it even though it’s no longer a possibility. Panarin choosing the Rangers over the Islanders drastically changed the future of this rivalry, and changed it for the better for Rangers fans.

3. The goaltending problem is still a problem. More and more trade speculation surrounding Alexandar Georgiev is coming out and the rumors are only going to gain steam as the deadline gets closer and closer, but the Rangers have to resolve the situation. I know there is faction of media and fans who think they could wait until the offseason to figure out their goaltending future, but that will mean another five-plus weeks after the deadline of one of the three watching each post-deadline game from the press box. How many hot dogs do they want Igor Shesterkin to eat exactly?

4. Shesterkin played his first two games as a Ranger, winning both and hasn’t played since and isn’t expected to play on Thursday in Long Island. If he does end up playing on Sunday against Columbus, he will have gone 10 days between starts. I understand the benefit of being in the NHL, learning how to be in the league and learning in practice from Henrik Lundqvist and Benoit Allaire, but nothing equals the experience and development of playing in actual games.

5. The situation is even worse for Lundqvist. Lundqvist played on Jan. 2 and on Jan. 11. He had nine days off between games and was tasked with facing the defending champion Blues on the road. to no surprise, the Rangers were easily beat. Either Shesterkin or Lundqvist is going to play on Sunday against Columbus, and given the rotation, it seems like it’s going to be Shesterkin, which means at the earliest, Lundqvist will play again on Jan. 21 against the Islanders, 10 days from his most recent start.

The whole thing is going to be taken to another level when the team has a 10-day layoff between Jan. 21 and Jan. 31 due to the All-Star break and the team’s scheduled five-day break. It’s all ridiculous and only gets more ridiculous with each passing day it’s not resolved.

6. Tony DeAngelo’s hat trick and five-point night last Thursday was extremely fun to watch and even with back-to-back pointless games against the Blues and Islanders, he’s on pace for 20 goals and 46 assists. As I wrote about Kaapo Kakko last week, immediate success isn’t always a guarantee for first-round draft picks, as DeAngelo was six years ago (19th overall). Now in only his second full NHL season after going up-and-down in the first two seasons he saw NHL action, DeAngelo has finally realized the potential that was the Lightning saw from him out of the OHL to select him with the first-round pick, the Coyotes saw in him to trade for him and the Rangers saw in him to acquire him for Derek Stepan. DeAngelo’s offense-first style of play doesn’t come without faults, as he was unable to clear the front of the net despite being on the man-advantage when Shesterkin couldn’t control a rebound to tie that game against New Jersey the game at 1, but DeAngelo more than made up for his defensive lapse with his career night.

7. No one wants the Rangers to allow more shots per game than any other team in the league, especially the three goalies, and I’m sure they are trying daily to make adjustments so a team as bad and offensively-challenged as the Devils aren’t able to record 49 shots against them like they did last Thursday. But on the other end of their league-worst shot prevention is the fact the Rangers’ defensemen have more points than any other defensive group in the league.

8. David Quinn clearly wishes his team played more like Barry Trotz’s Islanders and were capable of playing defensive-minded hockey every game, but that’s not who this team is, and that’s OK. The Rangers should accept that they are an offense-first team that is more like the Maple Leafs and Panthers and they don’t have to try to be the Islanders or Stats. Both of those teams wish they had some of the scoring ability of the Rangers, while the Rangers wish they could score three goals and have a guaranteed victory like those teams. The goal eventually is for this defensive group to play more defense, but for now, this style of hockey is fun to watch, even if it’s going to be hard to every be a true contender with such inconsistent defense.

9. The Rangers have scored 27 goals in their last five home games (all wins) and have scored only 12 goals in their last four road games (all losses). This is clearly who these Rangers are for this season: a team relies on its offense and goaltending to win games, while almost completely disregarding defense. That’s not necessarily a bad thing either. If they’re able to maintain their offense as their young defense gains continues to learn and develop, then they will have themselves the championship contender the rebuild was done to create. Dont’ try to make DeAngelo, Adam Fox and Jacob Trouba something they’re not, and try to hold them back from their offensive instincts.

10. The Met is so strong and so deep, it’s ridiculous. While Boston, Tampa Bay and Toronto are able to beat up on Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa and Detroit, the Met’s only misfit is New Jersey and they have played much better for the last month. The Rangers find themselves 12 points out of a division playoff berth in the Met and eight points out of the second wild-card berth (with two games in hand on the Flyers).

The Rangers went 2-1 since last week’s Thoughts and they’re going to need to basically continue winning two out of every three games for the remaining 37 games in order to reach the playoffs. At 22-19-4 with 48 points, they’re on pace for an 88-point season. The Flyers are now on pace for 98 points, so if 98 points get you the last playoff spot, the Rangers need 50 points in their remaining 37 games, or 1.35 points per game. That translates to a 23-10-4 record. Once again, it’s not impossible, but it’s going to take the same play they gave over the last week for the rest of the season, and it all starts with winning the Battle of New York.

Podcasts • Rangers

Jan 15, 2020

Rangers Podcast: Blowout in First Battle of New York

Arthur Staple of The Athletic joined me to talk about the Islanders and the Battle of New York over the next week.

After not playing for the the first four months of the season, the Rangers and Islanders met on Monday night at the Garden and will meet a total of three times in eight days. The next meeting will be Thursday at the Coliseum and then again on Monday at the Garden.

The Athletic Islanders beat writer Arthur Staple joined me to talk about the Rangers’ 6-2 win over the Islanders at the Garden, the former possibility of Artemi Panarin and Matthew Barzal on the same line for the Islanders, the Barry Trotz defense-first style of play, who is the Islanders’ No. 1 goalie, what Lou Lamoriello will do in the next six weeks before the trade deadline and what expectations are for the team after last year’s second-round exit.

Podcasts • Rangers

Jan 11, 2020

Rangers Podcast: One Goalie Has to Go

Brian Monzo of WFAN joined me to talk about the Rangers’ recent play and resolving the goaltending situation.

The Rangers returned home from their three-game, Western Canada losing streak to win two straight over Colorado and New Jersey to extend their home winning streak to four, scoring 21 goals in those four games. But now it’s back on the road to St. Louis to play the defending champion Blues and then an odd scheduling quirk with three games against the Islanders in eight days.

Brian Monzo of WFAN joined me to talk about the Rangers’ recent play, comparing Artemi Panarin’s Rangers tenure to that of Jaromir Jagr, Marian Gaborik and Rick Nash, line combinations, what to do with the three-goaltender situation and how David Quinn is doing in his second season.