PHILADELPHIA — In a matter of weeks, the Rangers became the Giants and Jets.
The season was crippled by a five-game losing streak in regulation, matching the club's longest period of futility since the tumultuous final week of the 2020-21 season, when president John Davidson and general manager Jeff Gorton were fired just days before being fired. Words from head coach David Quinn.
GM Chris Drury and head coach Peter Laviolette are now charged with repairing a broken unit. It's only November and the Rangers still have a winning record of 12-9-1, but there's no time to waste for either of these gentlemen, and no time to waste for the characters in the room. There is no. I've lost my will.
A 3-1 win over an empty net on Friday afternoon against the Flyers was pleasing to the team. The Rangers ran out of the rink into a pedestrian opponent in the first period. They took their first shot at the 11:11 mark, and with two goals separated by 1 minute, 10 seconds, they were trailing 2-0 at the 4:14 mark.
In the end, they lost 15-3, with a 13-4 scoring chance and a 10-2 dangerous chance. This was essentially a repeat of last week's first period in Calgary and Edmonton, and the Rangers looked unprepared.
A league-wide memo distributed by Drury touted Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba as among a number of candidates, but it appeared to be a shock to the general manager's face.
I don't understand why he would send a letter like that on an off day or after a game when he was having a face-to-face meeting with the team in his room instead of stripping the paint off the wall in no uncertain terms. .
The Rangers have a lame duck captain who seems to have checked out. Perhaps that's not surprising. Trouba knew the Rangers had every intention of trading him in the offseason before doing everything possible to prevent the deal. He knows he is in danger now.
I mistook it for Torba. I thought his bond with his teammates would outweigh his hatred of class. But perhaps unwittingly, Torba has become a pedestrian, something no one has ever said before.
He showed off his ole by leading Travis Konecny to a goal, scoring a 2-0 goal that would have made “Major League” Roger Dorn blush. In the Blueshirts' past 16 games, which they have won 7-9, Trouba has nine goals and 19 points for an expected goal share of 43.71. He disappeared as a physical force.
This has become unhealthy.
This has become an intolerable situation.
Of course, this isn't just Trouba's problem. Laviolette and his staff, who said the team was “busy,” certainly share the blame for the Rangers' lack of urgency from the start. They definitely share the blame for the inconsistency in the defensive zone.
Many times Friday, the Rangers looked unprepared. They didn't seem to care much.
Perception may not be reality, but that sucks.
“Yes, we don't look like we're ready yet, but we tried to bring the energy in the locker room,” Artemi Panarin, who has scored in just one of the past nine games, told the Post. “The game in Carolina wasn’t bad.” [4-3 on Wednesday]it wasn't bad [in the room] before this match.
“But the result was the same.”
Igor Shesterkin was excellent, making a series of grade-A saves in the first 12 minutes to keep his team alive. There was one reversal after another, one lost battle after another, one mental mistake after another, one weird rush after another.
If it's your first time, if it's your second time, maybe even your third time. There were no excuses. There are no excuses. No excuses.
Adam Fox, who proved once again on Friday that he is just as rock-bottom as the rest of his players with a series of mistakes, spoke about the team's overall lack of confidence. That's probably part of it.
“There just hasn’t been a sense of urgency in coming out,” No. 23 told the Post. “I don't know if you can pinpoint one thing. It's not just one guy either. It seems like all of us aren't ready to start from scratch. We'll get behind by one or two points and then we'll come back. We've been saying that for a while now, how difficult it is, the defense is a lot, we're shooting 3-for-15, and it's not good enough. Something has changed in our start. It definitely has to be.”
Something definitely has to change during the 60 minutes. The Rangers remained stable after the first period, with Laviolette making good use of the top six and then the bottom six, making two or three changes to the defense, and the team getting close, but could tip the game. They didn't make a push during their best puck possession. method.
The team, which has been struggling since the beginning of the season, appears to be overwhelmed by negativity. Something has to give and someone has to go.
I'm not talking about Aaron Rodgers.
