SAN JOSE, Calif. — This was insult on top of injury.
The Rangers were humiliated on Tuesday night, losing a 9-2 game to the Sharks that prompted a lengthy postgame meeting for at least some of which general manager Glen Sather was present, but of at least equal significance, Rick Nash left the match after the first period with what he called a “headache” after taking a Brad Stuart elbow/shoulder to the head at the 2:32 mark.
“It’s just a headache,” said Nash, who said he did not feel the same way he did when concussed in Boston last Feb. 12 on a hit by Milan Lucic that ultimately sidelined the winger for four games. “I didn’t feel it [right away], it came later.
“I just didn’t feel right.”
Nash, who had turned in a dominating performance a night earlier in Los Angeles, said he felt the force of the blow by Stuart — who received a two-minute elbowing minor on the play — across the right side of his face.
“It was a head shot,” Nash said. “Any time there’s a head shot you’re concerned when you feel the way it feels. It’s not a good feeling.”
It is unknown whether Nash will be available for the Rangers’ next game, Thursday in Anaheim. Coach Alain Vigneault, who said the replay shows Stuart’s “shoulder clearly hit [Nash’s] head and his feet appeared to leave the ice,” did not know the winger’s immediate status.
Nash left the arena while his teammates hashed out their embarrassing display. It was a fiasco, nothing less than that. When the room ultimately opened, not a single player attempted to sugar-coat or excuse the performance.
“I think mentally we weren’t even close to being where [the Sharks] were in terms of getting ready for the game,” Brad Richards told The Post. “They were ready for the challenge and we were playing pond hockey.
“We’ve never been a part of something like this, so hopefully it’s a good lesson for us. We have to catch up in how we prepare to play.”
The Rangers could never catch up to the Sharks. They were chasing all night long (when they weren’t standing around and watching, that is), repeatedly turning over the puck. They turned their own end into an expressway to the net that, for one, 19-year-old rookie Tomas Hertl turned into a playground with a four-goal performance.
The Blueshirts have pride, but they left it somewhere on the way to San Jose from Los Angeles within the span of 24 hours.
“It’s tough to explain, but we weren’t good enough in effort or execution and there are no excuses for it,” Ryan Callahan said. “We were embarrassed.
“We have to look at each other and have to make sure nothing like this ever happens again. We have to respond. To show up like we did, the approach to the game and through the game just wasn’t acceptable.”
The Rangers actually took a 1-0 lead at 3:27 when Richards scored on a five-on-three power play. But the Rangers surrendered a shorthanded goal on the back-end five-on-four less than a minute later and were down 2-1 after one.
The rout was on in the second, the Sharks coming in waves, essentially unopposed. Henrik Lundqvist, who had kept the score respectable for as long as possible, was pulled when it became 4-1 at 9:19 having allowed four goals on 26 shots.
When Martin Biron allowed a goal 20 seconds later to make it 5-1, the Sharks had scored three goals in 1:23. By that time, the Sharks had outshot the Rangers 27-9 and out-attempted the Rangers 55-22. San Jose accumulated 48 attempts in the 20-minute period.
“It’s embarrassing to lose 9-2,” Lundqvist said. “I can’t explain why this happened after what we did [in Los Angeles], but they exposed us.
“It’s not going to get any easier but we definitely have to learn from it. I’ve already had time to think about it and I’m going to forget it and move on.”
The Rangers will be off Wednesday as mandated by work rules in the collective bargaining agreement before taking their 1-2 record to Anaheim.
“I’m going to sleep on it,” Vigneault said. “I think you have to trust your leadership group, and though I don’t know them very well, I have to believe we have strong leaders.
“They don’t want to see this happen again.”