rangers avalance

AP Photo/Frank Franklin II

The Rangers came into last night’s game trying to ride the solid effort put forth against the Islanders the previous night, which was clearly their best game of the season, despite the shootout loss. However they fell flat, coming out weak and simply not putting the necessary pressure on a bad goalie early and often. The first period was boring, and the second saw the Avs capitalize on a mistake and a turnover en route to an easy win.

Antti Raanta was hung out to dry on both goals, but made some solid saves early in the game while the Rangers tried to figure out the Avs. Colorado got the 2-0 lead, then sat back in the neutral zone, forced dump and chase hockey, and made the Rangers come to them. That seems odd to say, since Patrick Roy is an aggressive coach. It seems to be a switch from his usual 2-1-2 (they sat back in a 1-3-1). This game was a solid dud.

As always, you can view the full videos on our video page here. All GIFs are on nyrgifs.comfiltered under the date of the game. On to the goals:

 

Avs 1, Rangers 0

mcd bad play

wagner goal

On what seemed like a normal breakout, Tyson Barrie fired the puck up the boards to Jack Skille, who tipped the puck up to Chris Wagner. Dan Boyle tried to cut off that second pass, but missed. That left Wagner open for a path to the net while Mats Zuccarello tried to recover for Boyle. Wagner’s shot beat Antti Raanta five-hole for the goal.

Avs 2, Rangers 0

dchene goal

A rare neutral zone turnover from Kevin Hayes led to this goal. Gabriel Landeskog took the puck and started a 2-on-1 with Matt Duchene. When it’s a Landeskog/Duchene 2-on-1, you know what happens.

Rangers 1, Avs 2

Oscar Lindberg ruined the shutout late with this goal. It was a 6-on-5 and no one covered him in the slot. Varlamov left a bad rebound on the Derick Brassard bad angle shot.

Shot Attempts

cf

Honestly this is embarrassing against a bad team. Sure, the Rangers poured it on late, but that was after Roy shifted the team to a 1-3-1 to stop the rush chances for the Rangers. The Avs shelled, and it worked. But the first two periods were an embarrassment.

Scoring Chances

scf

The Avs allowed the Rangers to shoot, but nothing was high quality. Plus, the Rangers allowed an equal amount of chances while the Avs were shelling. Sigh.

Individual Corsi

icorsi copy

When a team shells, this is what you expect. The Rangers didn’t show up, and then got more shot attempts while the Avs shelled.

Shot Locations

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The Rangers need to get their game in order. They got no shots from high danger areas.

Shift Chart

shifts

Usual shift chart from Alain Vigneault. Coaching was fine (in-game. Say what you want about lineup decisions). Execution was poor.

I was hoping the Rangers would follow up their solid effort Wednesday with an equal effort last night. They did not. It wasn’t even close actually. This game was an absolute dud. Let’s hope the Rangers find themselves this weekend. The process has been off the entire season. It’s December, right around the time this team wakes up. They need to, and fast.

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