Really, the thing that might undercut their season of such promise is a growing sense of gloom, and not knowing exactly how to make it go away.
Because in previous seasons, slumps only had come in smaller batches, in less mentally damaging situations. Now, after the 3-0 loss to the Panthers on Saturday night at BB&T Center, where they held the play and still found a way to lose, the Blueshirts are a team groping for answers and coming up with nothing but air — and have been doing so for a long, long time.
“It’s been a long stretch and you have to stay positive,” goalie Henrik Lundqvist told The Post, the three goals he gave up on 20 shots hardly an indictment of his play — or the defensive play of his team, undone only by a few ghastly mistakes that the red-hot (and first-place) Panthers took advantage of.
“[Staying positive] is the only thing you can do right now, and work hard,” Lundqvist said. “Work really hard and earn the bounces.”
That seems to be the only thing these Rangers (21-14-4) can say, and have said over this stretch that has them at 5-11-2 over the previous 18 games. They’re forced to always try to find the positive in losses, and they seem to be fed up with not knowing how to make it stop.
“I feel like we’ve been doing that for a while,” defenseman Dan Girardi said. “To be honest, the last month, month and a half, it’s been what we take out of the game instead of we won the game and move on and keep going. It’s tough in here to keep answering the same things, what can you take out of the game, what happened.
“We haven’t been in this spot in a long time, really battling in here.”
This had to be a mental blow, as they outshot the Panthers (22-12-4) by a total of 40-20, an impressive feat against a team that set a franchise record with its ninth-straight win. But the Rangers never could beat goalie Roberto Luongo, who was terrific in recording his third shutout of the season and the 71st of his stellar career.
But those seem to be the breaks the Rangers are suffering through, and games like Wednesday’s 5-2 win over the Lightning in Tampa Bay remain as the outliers.
“I feel like the effort was pretty solid out there,” Girardi said. “I feel like we were on pucks, making plays, and being in their D zone, not giving them too many looks. But it obviously wasn’t enough.”
It wasn’t because the effort was submarined by two big mistakes from Emerson Etem, who turned the puck over with about 30 seconds left in a scoreless first period, and the Panthers finished with a nice cross-ice feed buried by Logan Shaw. Etem’s second mistake came midway through the second, when he was called for a hook — one of six penalties the Rangers took — that resulted in Brandon Pirri scoring on a semi-shank shot on the power play that fooled Lundqvist as it slid along the ice, giving the Panthers a 3-0 lead.
Those two goals sandwiched one that defined this night, a harmless shot from the outside by Alex Petrovic that Lundqvist got with his blocker — only to see it hit the leg of Vincent Trocheck and go in for a 2-0 lead at 4:41 of the second.
“That second goal, it was that type of game — for them and for us,” Lundqvist said. “I think it’s important that the last couple games, especially the last two, it’s been a lot better. We have to focus on that and know that we’re moving in the right direction.”
It’s undoubtedly true they have looked better in these two games in Florida, but looking beyond the result for positives is what bad teams do.
“We fought until the end,” Lundqvist said, “but it’s just not enough.”
Sitting Kevin Hayes Twice Sends The Wrong Message
Sitting Kevin Hayes once was defensible. Sitting him twice is another inconsistent decision from a coach who is trying to help jump start his hockey team.
A player is fifth on the team in total shots on goal at 69 shots in 37 games. He’s a positive possession player. He is currently shooting 8.7%. Last season he shot 15.3%, with 111 shots in 79 games, so he’s on pace to put more shots on net this year than last. He’s tied for fourth on the team in total primary assists, and sixth in points/60. He’s had some inconsistent linemates the last stretch of games, where his slumping team played-- overall-- poorly.
The coach says, "the hockey player right now isn't totally doing it for me" and sits him for the second game in a row.
The Rangers earned their win against Tampa. They adjusted their game when needed to, clogging up the neutral zone and forcing Tampa to dump the puck in.
They outshot and out chanced their opponent, a rare event this season. And if someone is going to sit out to learn, that game was a good one to watch; New York’s play was a lot better than the usual technique of letting pucks through and praying to Henrik Lundqvist.
Sitting Kevin Hayes for one game to send a message isn’t a fantastic move, but it’s understandable: the Rangers do need more from him. Sitting him two games in a row looks like the start of a pattern. That’s indicative of the coach.
If there’s a message being sent, what’s the message? It’s easy to say that Hayes has looked lazy on the ice, or that he’s a turnover machine. You still have to have the puck to turn it over in the first place-- turnovers aren’t the greatest judge of a player’s ability. Hayes isn’t not scoring as much, but he’s putting more shots on goal per game than he did last year. If Hayes sits until the Rangers lose a game, they’re not putting their best lineup on the ice, and the coach specifically is not giving his team the best chance to win. The same problem existed when Glass was in the minors and Vigneault played Stoll over Etem. Scratching a positive possession player for a negative one who can’t even score is on the coach. It makes the team worse.
The Rangers have had issues this year generating shots. Last year, they averaged 29.9 shots for/60 at even strength, and the year before that 31.2 SF/60. This year, with 38 games played, they’re down to 26.3 SF/60, giving up 29.3 SA/60. It’s one thing to be a high-event team if you can produce shots for, but New York’s defense can’t get the puck out, they’re dumping the puck in far more than they should, and they’re failing to cleanly enter the zone. Hayes often carries the puck in instead of dumping it, and carrying the puck in leads to more shot attempts than dump-ins. With their depressed offense, the Rangers need that offensive support, and it needs to start from who plays and who plays when.
Scratching a talented forward while continuing to give ice time to possession anchors is shortsighted coaching. It’s not even that Hayes couldn’t use the games off to watch and learn-- it’s that the Rangers can’t afford it right now.
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