Jets 5, Rangers 2.
Click here for the boxscore with links to the game summary, etc.
Thoughts:
1) Boy, this is ugly.
2) If Henrik Lundqvist plays this way, they’re done. If Ryan McDonagh and Marc Staal (and when he gets back, Dan Girardi) play this way, they’re done. If Derick Brassard, Rick Nash and Mats Zuccarello play this way, they’re done. Simple as that.
3) And, yeah, there are others, most notably the twin Boston College disappointments, Chris Kreider and Kevin Hayes, whose failures have made this a one-line team … and that one line stunk on the trip and does not bring it every night.
4) If you really think this team is no good — which some of you say now when it’s easy to say – then you shouldn’t be disappointed. If they really are a bad team that’s hanging in there around second or third place, you should actually be pretty happy.
5) But they’re not a bad team. They’re a good team playing terribly. I mean terribly. This two-game trip was just pathetic. They have lost their identity, of defending first, and creating off of that. Of using their speed, which is almost non-existent (partly because some of their most important forwards are coasting). They have lost that structure that for two seasons, if they stuck with it, they’d come out on top one way or another much more often than not. They have lost all kinds of confidence.
6) It’s beyond a slump now. Every trapping team in the NHL knows they can’t handle the trap. Every team in the NHL knows that if you put the puck behind the Rangers net, their defensemen will chase it, panic will ensue, the forwards will leave somebody wide open. Every team in the NHL has seen that backdoor deflection play (Bryan Little, one of the Sedins – I can’t tell them apart). Every team in the NHL knows if you pressure their defensemen, the puck won’t move up ice and the Rangers’ speed will be nullified. This whole defensive-zone mess just reminds me so much of the 2000-01 Rangers of Ron Low. That team had a lot of good players, and it absolutely stunk. Just lost its way early and could never get it back. I think this is eminently fixable, though I am nowhere near smart enough to know how that’s going to happen. I believe Alain Vigneault and his staff are smart enough, and even-keeled enough.
7) I would love to see somebody go back and count the uncontested goals in these 13 games (3-8-2, with seven straight road losses). I mean, it’s got to be double-digits easily, maybe 20 or more. Seriously.
8) I still think this will be fixed and this will be a contender. BUT … it won’t be an easy fix, and it won’t be quick now that it’s gotten so deep. The worrisome part to me aren’t these 13 games. It’s that these 13 games followed that long stretch when everybody on the planet, Rangers coaches and players included, knew they were getting away with poor play and winning anyway. In truth, they have maybe played a dozen or so good, strong games out of 34.
9) McDonagh, one of the most troubling of the slumpers, has played about that many, too. He rarely gets a chance to use his wheels, and he’s just getting pounded in the defensive zone because of A) bad decisions by him and B) poor support by his teammates. But he’s also guilty of terrible decisions himself, and putting himself into bad spots. He sometimes glides back instead of busting it back. This is the captain we’re talking about. He needs to be a star for this team.
10) I’ll give him a little bit of a pass because he has had a struggling partner most of this season, whether it was Dan Girardi or now Marc Staal, and looks uncomfortable playing the right side in Girardi’s absence. To make matters worse, I thought Staal suffered a hand or arm injury on a hit by Alex Burmistrov in the second period and kept on playing.
11) As I think back to the start of this season, I remember poor decisions and poor execution with the puck coming out of the defensive zone. I don’t remember player after player being unchecked near the Rangers net. I don’t recall the lack of offensive opportunities at even strength. I remember the Rangers not having the puck a lot, but being able to do things with it when they got it. Of course I recall Lundqvist (and Antti Raanta) stealing games.
12) This game? I didn’t know the Winnipeg goalie’s name when the game began, and I’m not sure I remember it now that it’s over. I mean, Santino Vasquez might have been able to win that game for the Jets.
13) No, I don’t get scratching Oscar Lindberg for Viktor Stalberg, who sat out the entire third period. I mean, Lindberg’s been as bad as everybody else lately. He really has been. But … So the Rangers got Derek Stepan back, and he was mostly fine for a guy with healing ribs, extra padding, one practice, and 10 games missed. They had to call up Chris Summers in order to get the cap space for backup goalie Magnus Hellberg. I thought Summers was much better than Brady Skjei was in Minnesota. Anyway, Skjei would have been playing his sixth game in eight nights, according to Vigneault.
14) First shift for the Brassard line, half speed. Second shift, McDonagh and Staal behind the icing line, McDonagh tries to get it to Staal, puts it on Blake Wheeler’s stick. Staal goes for the poke, misses, Wheeler puts it in front and Brassard is not skating at all, leaves Bryan Little all alone for YET ANOTHER uncontested goal. Brassard barely broke a sweat on the trip. His linemates weren’t much better. Brassard and Zuccarello each -4 last night. Nash -3.
15) Brassard line again, 2:31 later, a wide open Little for the redirection up under the crossbar — 2-0. Another goal by a completely ignored forward. Staal actually had Andrew Ladd tied up on that one. But Nash and Brassard were nowhere near Little.
16) This is how bad it is for that line. When Little’s shot was originally waved off, the Jets were celebrating in the corner, Brassard’s line could have had a 3-on-1 or 4-on-1 and went offside. Turned out it didn’t matter, the puck had gone in. But they went offside.
17) Next time out, Nash came off the wall for a scoring chance, either their first or second of the trip. And the Rangers started to get some pressure in the offensive zone.
18) Then the real No. 1 defense pair lately (Keith Yandle and Dylan McIlrath) and the No. 1 line in this game (J.T. Miller, Kevin Hayes, Emerson Etem) get the goal back with a dirty, hard-working shift.
19) Stepan has an excuse, that he hasn’t played, hasn’t practiced, hasn’t taken a faceoff. But before he was hurt he was getting obliterated on faceoffs, and he did again, beaten cleanly by Mark Scheifele, as Dustin Byfuglien’s bomb went in, maybe off Jesper Fast, and past Lundqvist. It’s gotten to the point where maybe they can’t let him take defensive-zone draws. Seriously. Especially under these circumstances. And if that puck didn’t hit Fast or something on the way in, then Lundqvist has got to stop it, no matter how many of Byfuglien’s 300 pounds were behind it.
20) So, OK, down 3-1 opening the second on the power play, plenty of game left. Zuccarello dumps one in, and nobody … neither he nor Brassard, who are first in, chases it. They both glide toward the puck, which comes right out. Brassard’s next shift, all sorts of offensive-zone fun for the Jets. Then Hayes takes a lazy, lazy penalty. Nash takes a penalty.
21) The Rangers killed the 5-on-3 pretty skillfully, but geez, is that how you come back? Taking penalties.
22) They did get better after the kill, and Ladd – who takes enough dumb penalties to be a Ranger – put them on the power play again. Stuart flat-out punched Nash in the mouth in front of both referees. Should have been a 5-on-3. Guess punching in the mouth is legal, just don’t tap your stick on anybody. Play on.
23) Anyway, Boyle – who has been one of the Rangers’ best players lately – scored the PPG and they were back in it. Again.
24) But of course, next up came the breakdown, which has happened so frequently at key points these last five road games. Zuccarello fails to gain the red line and ices the puck – and has the onions to argue. The Rangers get running around again in their own end, Nash completely forgets about Tyler Myers. 4-2. On an almost identical play in the third, this time with Nash playing with Stepan, Myers hit the crossbar.
25) Opening seconds of the third, right off the center-ice draw, Scheifele gets a breakaway around Yandle. Holy shishkebab.
26) What’s remarkable to me how hard they all skate – they do – and forecheck when down by two late or down by a goal with the empty net. Then they all go full-bore. The last two years, they went full-bore from the first puck drop. Not now.
27) By the way, Jarret Stoll didn’t work out and I get that. But I am not convinced even a little bit that the current fourth line is good enough outside of Dominic Moore. And some fourth-liners are getting second- and third-line minutes. I mean, Tanner Glass (who has been quite good and effective), Stalberg, Etem, Fast … Boy, this is ugly.
28) The highlight for me was Summers with the Paul Mara beard.
29) Countdown to Festivus: Four days! Gonna be a lot of airing of grievances.
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My Three Rangers Stars:
1. J.T. Miller.
2. Dylan McIlrath.
3. Dan Boyle.
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Your poll vote for Three Rangers Stars:
1. Dylan McIlrath.
2. J.T. Miller.
3. Tanner Glass.
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