Splat. Embarrassed. Dominated. Use whatever term you want and adjective or adverb before it and you nay not even close to describing yesterday's Rangers' performance, ending a three-game win streak. Despite getting outplayed the first 40 minutes, New York was able to cut the deficit 3-2 early in the third. That goal was fools good, as Pittsburgh scored shortly thereafter and then added three more tallies to make the final score 7-2, which may not accurately represent just how bad the Rangers were.
Just like the 6-1 loss to Pittsburgh on November 23, defensive breakdowns were apparent all over the ice. Forwards failing to back check. Defensemen going down early to block shots, allowing opposing forwards to hold the puck and find open shooting lanes. The "shutdown" pair dominated. The forward lines shifted entering the third but the defense pairings for some inexplicable reason remaining intact. Surrendering 47 shots as the Penguins came in waves while looking like a pee wee team against high school kids as they got lapped on the ice. New York was outworked and outhustled all game, getting beaten to pucks all over the frozen sheet of water. After watching this game and the 6-1 loss, it's hard to make any semblance of an argument that New York should be spoken about as one of the elite teams in the league, let alone the Metro, especially as compared to Pittsburgh.
You know I am usually not subject to hyperbole and overreacting, as I take it game by game and look for patterns. But all the good work done the prior three games defensively was overcome in this poor effort. Now, part of the three game win streak was due to the fine play of Henrik Lundqvist, which masked some defensive issues, though the play on that side of the ice had been better. Antti Raanta was left out to dry and twist in the wind during the loss. The only positive is that it wasn't Lundqvist, which prevents his psyche for possibly getting damaged, reversing the progress made in those three games. But if the brass can't see from the last two games against the Pens that changes are needed on the blueline, then nothing will.
If you want the perfect capsulation of the game, here it is from today's paper:
The Rangers had allowed a sum of six goals in going 6-1 in their last seven games, holding their opponents to two goals or fewer in each one. The Blueshirts allowed four in the final 15:49 of this game after somehow getting within 3-2 at the 1:52 mark of the third.But it became 4-2 at 4:11, 5-2 at 6:12, with the Penguins — playing their seventh game in 13 nights and without linchpin defenseman Kris Letang — pretty much playing unopposed the rest of the way in finishing with 47 shots on net and a 57-33 even-strength advantage in attempts after a 17-4 third period.
Coach Alain Vigneault cited fatigue in the post game press conference. While this was the Rangers' seventh game in 13 days, guess what, it was the same for the Penguins, who were without their best and two of their top-six d-men. Playing without Rick Nash didn't help, but all of the nightmare can't be attributed to not having him. If you are going to blame fatigue, then that's on AV for refusing to play Adam Clendening periodically.
In addition, if you see that Ryan McDonagh (on for four goals against) was having his worst game in weeks and Dan Girardi (on for five goals against, including three shorthanded) wasn't helping matters, then shift them off of matching up against Sidney Crosby's line. In addition, nothing precludes you from mixes up the duos to see what might work. But AV's stubbornness or his inability to adjust meant that we saw much of the same all game. The definition of insanity is repeating the same action and expecting a different result. That was the case Tuesday.
While AV blamed schedule and fatigue, Derek Stepan wasn't buying it:
“I don’t want to throw us too much under the bus and get too deep into it, but I honestly don’t want to put this on the schedule or fatigue,… Stepan told The Post. “With the exception of Antti, there’s not one guy who gave anything more than a ‘C’ performance, and the way we hung him out to dry in the third period is really unfortunate.“We didn’t have any jam from the first whistle until the last whistle. The effort this year compared to last year is way higher, but we can’t have something like this. It’s just not acceptable.…
Neither was Mats Zuccarello:
On being outworked , "it's embarrassing to lose like that. I know everyone in here cares and works hard. I would say that it's more of a "C," "D," performance from everyone, and it was everyone, except for Raants. He gave us a chance and we didn't back him up. It's not fun. It's embarrassing to lose like that. No one was at their best today and there is nothing more to say. It's not good enough, especially in an important game like this."On struggling against a team playing their "A" game, "We are playing such a good team with the best players in the World. We can't play like we did today. We know that we can play much better, it was everyone, except for Raants, and it's no fun. It's not like we want to go out there and not do our best...."
AV shifted up the lines in the third, going with Puempel-Hayes-Fast, Grabner-Stepan-Zuccarello, Kreider-Miller-Vesey and Hrivik-Lindberg-Pirri. We will see if he uses these trios on Friday against Minnesota (welcome back Wric Staal :)). But unless the D is better, especially against a Wild team that surrenders few goals thanks to their solid blue line and Devan Dubnyk, it could be another long night.
I had said in yesterday blog that special teams would make the difference. That was right to an extent. Pittsburgh went 3-for-5 on the power play to the Rangers’ 0-for-3, but that minimizes the full impact of the loss. But, the Rangers are 0-for-10 on the power play their last five games, which has contributed to the drop in offensive production overall lately. I get Nash and Zib and Buch are out, but others need to step up, and lately, that just hasn't happened offensively. So if the D or goaltending struggles, it's a recipe for disaster.
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