NEW YORK – There are slumps, which come and go. Then there are developing patterns and reason for serious concern.
That’s where the Rangers were as they entered Sunday’s game against first-place Washington, a team with three games in hand, a six-point lead, a four-game winning streak and an 11-1-1 mark in its last 13.
The Rangers are nearing a crisis with three wins in their last 13 games, and a just-completed dumpster-fire of a two-game trip through Minnesota and Winnipeg.
The last time the Rangers had a run like this was the start of Alain Vigneault’s first season as coach, 2013-14, when the renovation of the Garden forced the team to play its entire preseason, then the first nine games of the regular season, on the road, starting 3-7.
Of course that team turned the corner, hit its stride in December, and ended up in the Stanley Cup Final.
So things can change. There is no sign whatsoever that this team is ready to be declared fixed.
This team has played poorly for long stretches of games, or entire games, pretty much through the first 34 games this season, except for possibly 12 nearly-complete games or so.
The last two games were terrible performances, terrible efforts. The previous game was a solid win over Ottawa. The three prior, on a swing through Western Canada, were marred by critical, colossal mistakes at pivotal times in games.
“I think that, if I just focus on the last game, our top players were not our top players,” Vigneault said Sunday. “Some of the decisions, whether it was from our back-end or our top line were leading to Grade A opportunities from the other team. You look throughout the league, the teams that are winning are getting the goaltending, their top offensive players are on the scoresheet, top defensive players are shutting down the other team’s top players. It’s the NHL, it’s where we are and it’s what we need from our guys.”
Ut sure hasn’t been one thing. Indeed, some of the Rangers’ weaknesses of the past – faceoffs, power play – haven’t been weaknesses this season.
But the team’s identity, a team built to defend first and produce offense off of that, has crumbled.
For a long time, goalies Henrik Lundqvist and Antti Raanta masked that. The Rangers’ top three defensemen – Ryan McDonagh, Marc Staal and especially Dan Girardi – are off to inexplicably bad starts, though McDonagh and Staal have had some good stretches. Their bottom two – Keith Yandle and Dan Boyle – are more than fine, and indeed strengths lately.
It’s certainly not all on the defensemen, though. The Rangers’ forwards just can’t be relied upon to provide defensive support. That’s a massive problem, top to bottom, including the recently waived Jarret Stoll, who was signed to help in that area, and rookie Oscar Lindberg, a defensively reliable, but penalty-prone, player whose game slipped to the point where he was a healthy scratch in Winnipeg.
Is it fixable?
If it isn’t fixable, then the Rangers have a gigantic problem, because they are right up against the salary cap with virtually no room to make significant upgrades. Most of the players they’d deal are at the lowest level of their value and/or have no-trade/no-move clauses.
If it isn’t fixable quickly, then it’s a crisis.
Twitter: @RangersReport.
Photo by Getty Images.
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