Thirteen days into the season, it looks like the Rangers are already approaching the 2020-21 crossroads.
Because it’s not just four straight losses and a 1-4-1 record after Tuesday’s 3-2 loss to Buffalo in a game where the scoreboard flattered the losers, but it’s not there for the Rangers.
There is nothing in which this team can hang its hat, nor a trusted depository to take off, nor a singular athlete who seems capable of turning things back on a fruitful path. There are only defects to make signposts, both on the ice and on the bench.
Of the four consecutive defeats by one goal (first against the Devils and then a pair in Pittsburgh), this represented the team’s lowest performance. And of the five overall defeats, two have reached both teams in this new division for failing to reach the 24-team qualifying tournament last year. These would be the Devils and the Sabers.
“Right now, a loss is a loss, it’s a loss. It doesn’t matter if you’re close and do things right, it doesn’t matter if the other team tilts the ice a little bit, it’s about finding ways to win, ”said Chris Kreider, who marked his first year to give at the Blueshirts a 1-0 lead at 6:28 that evaporated just 6:22 later. ”We must hate losing in that room.
“We have to do it right now and go out and play a next game without a doubt against Buffalo [Thursday] for the full 60 minutes. We have to show that, in fact, we hate loss, because we can talk about it all day, but we have to put it out for 60 years. “
Once again, despite Kreider’s first goal with a wonderful central entry from Pavel Buchnevich in the reunited line 1A with Mika Zibanejad in the center, the Rangers failed to get what they have every right to expect from the top six. Artemi Panarin could have been the main culprit, going around the nightclubs repeatedly and shooting himself at times, but Zibanejad was not much better.
“It simply came to our notice then [about the top six] and the obvious answer is, “Yeah, we don’t have enough of the first six,” for sure, “said a restless David Quinn
Zibanejad may still feel the effects of missing the first week of training camp while he was infected with COVID-19 (93, of course, has said that is not the case), but it has not yet been claimed through half a dozen matches). In addition, Zibanejad won just 6 of 21 draws while losing a group cleanly, as the Blueshirts won just 17 of 56 for a 30.3% success rate.
The first six did not gain weight, the powerful game remained off the board, the penalty unit allowed a couple of game goals to the Sabers and Alex Georgiev could not lift his team with the crucial salvation or two when the Rangers fell after Buffalo tied 2-2 at 6:03 of the second period on Tobias Rieder’s breakaway just as a Blueshirt power play had expired.
Eighty-eight seconds later, the Sabers were in the lead at 7:31 when Jack Eichel ripped one off Georgiev with a power play timer from the slot. The Rangers were generally sleepy until the final minutes of the game before expiring on a cold night.
“It was really disappointing because for the last four nights I thought we were skating and competing for the most part for 60 minutes,” the coach said. “We achieved the goal and then our whole mentality changed. Hope plays and the crossed ice steps are re-incorporated, forcing the plays and turning the puck inside the offensive blue line.
“Then we achieve the goal of the power game [by K’Andre Miller] a [19:53] of the first period, but then they achieve that goal of a tie and the boy became demoralized. You could feel that there was no life in our bank. We had more life in the third, but you won’t win games like that “.
We know. It is a very young team. But if the club is so mentally fragile right now, then Quinn and her staff will have to fill in the blanks. Coaches are also part of the bench environment.
It was Jack Johnson who took the penalty that had little to do with the play that gave the Sabers the game of strength at 11:38 of the first in which Dylan Cozens denied Kreider’s previous score. The Rangers have allowed six game goals. Johnson has been on the ice for three of them and in the box for two of them. Libor Hajek, maybe Thursday.
Look, the sixth defender shouldn’t be a scapegoat. You win as a team and you lose as a team. The problem is that the Rangers only lose as a team.