It was a performance that was not worth even waiting 24 hours, let alone the 313 days that appeared in the Garden of the Rangers.
But then, that wouldn’t even feature a Blueshirts appearance, which didn’t show up at the start of the season, losing 4-0 to an Islanders team that essentially took a 60-minute walk through the park Thursday.
If you are looking for an excuse for this debacle, in which Igor Shesterkin allowed the goals in the third, fifth and seventh shots he faced while his teammates had no discomfort.
There are no excuses for the Rangers, saving the indignity of being shaken out of the building just because customers are not allowed in the garden. It was an amateur performance by a team that was not ready to compete against the conference finalists.
Check it out. The Rangers weren’t ready to compete, period. If you don’t believe me, you might prefer to hear it from David Quinn, who, thinking about it, has a lot more responsibility than I do.
“I thought we were doing some of the things we were doing in the bubble again,” said the coach, who issued the indictment. “Cheating the game … there are zero shortcuts in this game, zero shortcuts. We were playing hope hockey.
“We just weren’t ready to play the right way. We allowed them to get in position all night because we weren’t skating. We didn’t play with the right intentions. There was not much good tonight, that’s for sure. “
It is almost impossible to assess the structure or system of the Rangers or their willingness to play simplified straight line hockey outside of this failure, through which one player after another made the most fundamental mistakes.
Failed ice crossings, neglected business losses, lack of competition for lost records, inability or unwillingness to win individually, and lack of discipline were routine in what became the first defeat. closing night opening from the terrible 1998-99 1-0 game against the Flyers
Shesterkin hesitated in the first period, perhaps through no fault of any of the three who beat him in a 10:58 lap, but was unable to make a big save when Brock Nelson scored from the slot in the game. 2:33. A two-on-one followed 1:19 later, in which Anders Lee threw one from the left wing in a play that started behind the Islanders ’net. And then the splendid Mat Barzal beat the goalkeeper from the right side by sneaking through an escort.
An empty building meant that Shesterkin, the apple of everyone’s eyes during his debut last season, didn’t have to suffer what the inevitable chants of “Henrik … Henrik” would have been like. But the 25-year-old Russian showed his spine for the past 40 minutes and asserted himself with a handful of wonderful stops. That was one of the few positives of the night, though it must be assumed that Alex Georgiev will get his head for Saturday’s rematch on Broadway.
K’Andre Miller had a very nervous time in his first professional competition, which was not an intriguing fight. Alexis Lafreniere wasn’t as exposed as his rookie teammate and played at an encouraging pace, even getting some changes with Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin when Quinn mixed his line combinations and started moving Kaapo Kakko.
But make no mistake about believing that youth and inexperience were the main factors in the failure in which Semyon Varlamov was so rarely tried that there was no reason to cite the name of the islanders ’goalkeeper until the end of the ‘report.
Panarin and Strome were absolutely ineffective, except for a couple of power plays in which the first unit controlled the puck and locked it in the offensive zone for a good minute or more, although it could not create a golden opportunity. Chris Kreider was not very important. Jacob Trouba, trapped in the blue line of that odd-numbered first-half race, which Lee scored 2-0, looked in between. Adam Fox had a hard night.
So did Tony DeAngelo, who aggravated his problems by applying an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in addition to a possession offense. Brendan Lemieux played just one change in the first period and was hit by big samples in the second after being responsible for a mass offense. The Rangers were abbreviated eight times.
Mika Zibanejad could have been the best of the Blueshirts. Pavel Buchnevich worked hard. Filip Chytil had a few moments. All right, we’re understanding here to find a splinter of positivity in a forest of 60-minute frustration and failure.
It was only one night, of course, certainly. But it’s also the only night the Rangers 2020-21 can be measured. The Blueshirts waited more than ten months to return to the garden. They shouldn’t have bothered.