There’s no sugar coating it, last night was the Rangers worst game of the season and a pretty embarrassing effort all around. One of two things are happening, perhaps a combination of both. The Rangers are on their first road trip in a while and are comfortably rotating between the second and third place spot with the Penguins in the Metropolitan division. There is a chance the guys are having some fun on the road, maybe getting after it a little bit and as a result, playing poorly. The other thing that is happening is the Rangers just do not have a third line. They have a fourth line and a pretty darn good AHL first line, but they do not have a third line and if this game isn’t proof that Chris Drury needs to get the trade ball rolling, I don’t know what is.
The Rangers got off to an awful start, primarily in the penalty department. Halfway through the first, there were guys who haven’t even touched the ice yet because the Rangers spent five of the first ten minutes of the game shorthanded. Miraculously, the Rangers killed off every single one of the Blues’ power play opportunities but that wasn’t going to change the momentum of this game. Shortly after the teams returned to 5v5, Robert Thomas finished on a St. Louis passing play that made the Rangers look silly. Just an absolute highlight reel passing sequence from Thomas to Parayko and Kyrou back to Thomas. 45 seconds later, Ivan Barbashev scored to make it 2-0 and two minutes after that, Thomas got his second of the night.
The Rangers should have pulled Igor Shesterkin right then and there. Not because it was his fault the team was getting blown out, but because the team clearly wasn’t bailing him out the way he bails them out every other night. Nevertheless, Ryan Strome got the Rangers on the board with a slap shot on the power play with assists from Adam Fox and Igor Shesterkin. So perhaps it worked out that they didn’t pull him just yet since it resulted in his first assist of the season, more Hart Trophy points. The period would end and you would think that the Rangers would come back with some fire in the second.
Wrong. Fifteen seconds into the second, FIFTEEN seconds, Ryan O’Reilly scored to make it 4-1 and then Gerard Gallant decided to pull Shesterkin as this night clearly wasn’t going to get any better. Alexandar Georgiev would come into the game in yet another attempt to hopefully get this Rangers team going. This next goal would result in me turning the TV off and going to bed. Shocker, the Rangers took another penalty and St. Louis pulled Villie Husso for the extra attacker. That shift, right there is 1. All you need to watch to get an understanding of last night’s game and 2. All Chris Drury needs to see in order to realize that he needs to improve this team’s bottom six.
St. Louis absolutely dominated Chytil, Gauthier and Gettinger who were out there for the 6 on 5 and controlled the puck for over a minute, maybe even two. It almost looked like the Rangers didn’t want to bother touching the puck, they we’re just waiting for them to score so they could get off. If you waited a second or neglected to turn the TV off unlike me, you would’ve seen the Blues score another goal 38 seconds later to make it 6-1. K’Andre Miller would score one more for the Rangers later in the period, of course on the power play as that seems to be the only time the Rangers can score.
What I’m sure was a quiet third period would remain scoreless and the Rangers would leave St. Louis with an absolutely awful showing and their second loss in a row. At this point, the Rangers weaknesses are obvious and like I said at the top, perhaps this is just a tough stretch of the season and the Rangers aren’t too concerned with the points but the fact of the matter is this team needs improvements if they want to make it out of the first round of the playoffs.
The Rangers are back at it in Dallas on Saturday, a team they haven’t played since opening night. Look for this group to come out swinging looking to burn the memory of the disaster that was last night’s efforts.
Chris Feldman
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