Thirteen days into the season, it feels like the Rangers are already approaching the crossroads of 2020-21.
It’s not just about four consecutive losses and a 1-4-1 record after the 3-2 defeat on Tuesday in Buffalo in a game in which the score flattered the losers, but there is no, there for the Rangers.
There is nothing for this team to hang his hat on, no reservoir of confidence to pull off, no single athlete who seems to be good at turning things around on a fertile track. There are only mistakes to act on the ice and on the bench as signposts.
Of the four consecutive defeats with one goal – first for the Devils and then a few in Pittsburgh – it represented the worst performance of the team. And of the five overall losses, two came after the two teams in this newfound division did not make it to the 24-team qualifying tournament last year. It would be the demons and sabers.
‘At this point, a loss is a loss. It does not matter if you are close and doing the right things, it does not matter if the other team tilts the ice a bit, it is about finding ways to win, ‘said Chris Kreider. the year to give the Blueshirts a 1-0 lead at 6:28 which only evaporated 6:22 later. ‘We have to hate losing in that room.
“We have to put it in perspective now and play an undoubted next game against Buffalo. [Thursday] for the full 60 minutes. We need to show that we actually do not hate to lose because we can talk about it all day, but we need to put it out there for the full 60s. ‘
Despite Kreider’s earlier goal of an amazing center-back by Pavel Buchnevich on the reunited 1A line with Mika Zibanejad in the middle, the Rangers did not get the right to expect from their tops. Artemi Panarin was perhaps the biggest culprit, he repeatedly turned pucks over and misjudged once, but Zibanejad was not much better.
‘This is an obvious question [about the top six] and the obvious answer is, ‘Yes, we’re not getting enough out of our top six,’ ‘said a troubled David Quinn
Maybe Zibanejad still feels the consequences of missing the first week of training camp while infected with COVID-19 (No. 93 of course said that is not the case), but he still has to let himself through half a dozen matches what’s more.) Zibanejad drew just 6 of 21 while losing a bunch clean, as the Blueshirts won just 17 of 56 for a 30.3 percent success rate.
The top six do not pull his weight, the power play is kept off the board, the penalty kill unit allowed some power play to the Sabers, and Alex Georgiev could not elevate his team with the necessary essential rescue. or two when the Rangers sank after Buffalo drew 2-2 at 6:03 of the second period on Tobias Rieder’s breakaway, just as a Blueshirt power play expired.
Eight-eight seconds later, the Sabers were at the forefront at 7:31 when Jack Eichel ripped one through Georgiev on a power-play one-off from the slot. The Rangers were generally intoxicated until the last minutes of the game before falling into the cold night.
“It was really disappointing because I thought we had been skating for the past four nights and competing for 60 minutes for the most part,” the coach said. “We get the goal and then our whole mindset changes. The heap plays and the cross-ice past creeps in again, forcing plays and turning the disc around within the offensive blue line.
‘Then we get the power play [by K’Andre Miller] by [19:53] of the first period, but then they get the equalizing goal and the boy demoralized our bench. You could feel that there was no life on our bank. We had more life in the third, but you are not going to win such games. ”
We know. This is a very young team. But if the club is so mentally fragile at this point, it’s Quinn and his staff to fill in the blanks. The coaches are also part of the banking environment.
It was Jack Johnson who took the penalty kick that had little to do with the game that gave the Sabers the power play at 11:38 from the first on which Dylan Cozens ignores Kreider’s previous score. The Rangers allowed six powerplays. Johnson was three of them on the ice and for two of them in the box. Libor Hajek, maybe Thursday.
Behold, the sixth defender is not a scapegoat. You win as a team and you lose as a team. The problem is that the Rangers only lose as a team.