Rangers Recap: 6-2 My Stomach

Boy, when the Rangers lose hockey games this season, they go all in on losing. W can dive into last night’s clunker all we want, but the fact is it’s an 82 game season, the team is 18-5-1 now. Stinkers happen. The only positives to take from last night were Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad continued continuing their streaks. With so many injuries to the forwards, it’s critical that the best players still put up points, even in losing efforts.

There was some cause for concern in how the Rangers played, though. They abandoned all structure and multiple goals by the Senators were scored off the rush. Add in a couple of good bounces for the Sens, and you have a 6-2 final score. It’s always the Senators too. For some reason, they give the Rangers fits.

The team also lost Barclay Goodrow to injury when a puck hit him in the mouth. Peter Laviolette had no update at the time of this writing.

The coach did not want to admit that the team might from a hectic schedule, but I can’t help but wonder if fatigue of any sort–whether mental or physical–played into the lapses that occurred on the ice. The Rangers seemed to abandon all structure after the first period, and it bit them. The second period in particular was total track meet hockey. The goals that period were all a product of neither team playing defense.

Igor Shesterkin is a top goalie in the world. We all know this. But he is clearly fighting it right now. Goaltending around the league is down–as evidenced by the .903 league average save percentage–but this is Igor Shesterkin. This almost feels like Henrik Lundqvist’s 2013-2014 season, where it felt like he just couldn’t make a save in the first half of the season. Lundqvist turned it on in the second half, so perhaps we get the same from Igor.

No one likes to get their doors blown off  by lesser opponents, and hopefully this motivates the Rangers to tighten things up before they hit the ice again on Saturday. Hopefully with so much time off before next game, it is the kind of reset the players need to try and find that fire that they had at the initial part of the season. Maybe we’ll get some news on Filip Chytil, who is still reportedly skating on his own.

The Rangers are missing 2 top 9 forwards, and perhaps a polarizing “defensive” 4th liner now, those injuries can prove costly for any team depending on the players involved. Time off is much needed.