The losses are piling up for the Rangers, and frustration is mounting.
Falling to the worst team in the NHL, the Blackhawks, 2-1 Monday night at Madison Square Garden, the Blueshirts hit a new low in a season that is only 27 games old but has seen more chaos than most organizations do in years.
Heck, there might be a tampering investigation this week.
It has not done the Rangers’ on-ice product any favors, but the disconnect began way before president and general manager Chris Drury’s leaked trade memo, Jacob Trouba’s harsh exit to Anaheim and Ottawa’s accusations regarding The Post’s report of the team’s interest in Senators captain Brady Tkachuk.
The Rangers have been shackled by self-inflicted mistakes time and time again.
A lack of physicality, drive and cohesion has continuously hindered their competitiveness.
There hasn’t been a spark to their game in way longer than the Rangers presumably like to admit.
This is who they have been for almost all of this season.
The question now is, who will they become?
Because when you walk out of the Rangers locker room, where a team mural used to reside on the left wall, it is now a big white void.
“The execution was off all night,” head coach Peter Laviolette said after the Rangers dropped their eighth game in their last 10, which allowed for the Blackhawks to snap a five-game losing skid.
“Could be fatigue, could be mental, could be anything. Regardless, it’s unacceptable. We’ve got to be better than that. You’re not going to win hockey games if you can’t execute. We haven’t talked about that much, but tonight, execution was clearly won with the puck. We couldn’t make five-foot passes or connect on a 20-foot pass or coming out of D-zone coverage or in the offensive zone, just couldn’t connect on our plays.”
Coincidentally, the Rangers hadn’t lost to the Blackhawks since Trouba chucked his helmet on the ice out of frustration on Dec. 3, 2022.
They could’ve used a bit of that — even just a morsel — to revive what has been a lethargic lineup.
The Islanders now have a chance to pull ahead of the Rangers (two games in hand) into fourth place in the Metropolitan Division standings if they beat the Kings on Tuesday night on Long Island.
“It’s not easy, but we try to stay together,” Artemi Panarin said of how the Rangers mentally push through this spell when everything seems to be ending up in the back of their net. “All of us are in the same situation, we’re in the same boat. We’ve got to [climb out] of that hole together, too.
“In that situation, [you don’t] have any other option. Just hard work, be ready mentally, handle that and then use it like an opportunity for being better.”
Breaking a 1-1 tie built in the first period, Blackhawks wing Taylor Hall finished a 2-on-1 rush with Connor Bedard to regain the lead for his team at the 6:16 mark of the middle frame.
Hall led both teams with two points in an energetic performance under the pinwheel ceiling of MSG.
The same ceiling that caused Rangers fans’ boos to soar loudly around the lower bowl.
“It’s frustrating,” Laviolette said of the boos. “I get it. Deservedly so. When your pace should be at a higher level and your execution should be at a higher level, I get it. It’s frustration.”
Mika Zibanejad continues to look like a shell of himself.
Coughing the puck up behind the Rangers net on a weak attempt to rim the puck around the boards, Zibanejad gave it up right to Hall, who zipped a pass across the zone to Tyler Bertuzzi for the 1-0 lead at the 8:10 mark of the first period.
The Swedish center has always been revered for his defensive game, but it has been a weak point for him this season in addition to the offensive struggles.
Two giveaways, two shots on goal and a minus-one rating proved to be Zibanejad’s final stat line Monday night.
The Rangers haven’t endured a 2-8 record in a 10-game stretch since the middle of the 2009-10 season.
It’s been some time since the team was in such a state of disarray.
And time is of the essence these days in New York.
Credit: Source link
