It’s been the same story for the Rangers every single game this month.
The two points up for grabs are a must. Wins over teams ahead of them in the Eastern Conference wild-card race are a must. Damage control of the previous two months has been in full effect.
And yet, despite playing much better hockey through 14 games this month, the Blueshirts haven’t had that element of desperation when they’ve needed it most in their past two losses — the latest a 4-0 defeat at the hands of the Hurricanes on Tuesday night — against two notable teams.
This all while the clubs around them in the playoff push continue to pick up points.
That’s what has made the Rangers’ situation so precarious despite their uptick in play lately.
“It stings different than the other night against Colorado,” said Mika Zibanejad, who is still searching for his game. “But this one stings.”
Carolina scored 56 seconds into this Metropolitan Division showdown at Madison Square Garden.
They scored again with 31 seconds left in the second period.
The Rangers’ previous game against the Avalanche saw Colorado net the game winner with 14.7 seconds left in regulation to break a 4-4 tie.
Those are the moments that require diligence and urgency, and the Rangers have come out on the wrong end of them one too many times during this critical stretch.
“We just got to stay focused from beginning until end,” said Artemi Panarin, who was responsible for the neutral zone giveaway that led to the Hurricanes’ first goal.
Andrei Svechnikov led the Canes with a three-point effort, scoring the team’s first two goals of the evening.
The Rangers haven’t folded at a multi-goal deficit in some time, but they did Tuesday.
Sebastian Aho scored just over a minute into the third period before Seth Jarvis made it a 4-0 game 1:26 later.
“The first one’s tough, you start a game you go down 1-0 and you know it’s a big game against one of the division leaders — that’s a tough one,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “From there, it was pretty tight. The rest of the first period was pretty tight, the second period I thought they had the better chances. … [The second one was] a tough one to give up, 1-0 at that point. We could’ve scored on some of our chances, not able to capitalize, and so you go down 2-0.
“The part that [was] really discouraging, for me, is the start of the third period pushed the game and took the energy from us, and we never responded well after that.”
The lower bowl of the Garden half cleared out by the third period. The boos started hurling down shortly after.
The home team simply wasn’t ready for the Canes once the puck dropped, a puzzling trend this season that has popped up both before and after their season-jeopardizing 4-15 stretch.
Svechnikov opened the scoring just 56 seconds into the game, when the Carolina forward ripped one past Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin (22 saves) from between the circles.
It counted as the fifth time this season, and first since Nov. 19 in Vancouver, that they’ve allowed a goal within the first minute of game, as well as the ninth time they’ve given one up in the first two minutes.
“The boys are down about it, you don’t want to lose games, especially divisional games like this,” Vincent Trocheck said. “But try to keep the spirits up, I think we’ve been playing fantastic hockey here this month of January. Continue to play that way, we’re going to have a chance every night. Trying to keep everybody’s head up.”
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