ANAHEIM, Calif. — The Rangers had the best of intentions coming into Thursday night’s match against the Ducks following Tuesday’s 9-2 humiliation in San Jose, they really did.
They spoke in the morning of taking pride in their game, in learning from what had happened against the Sharks, leaving that behind and starting anew.
A clean slate, to coin a slogan on a T-shirt.
But the road to the first overall pick in the Entry Draft is paved with good intentions and, incredibly, as of this very moment, that appears just the course on which the dysfunctional Rangers find themselves.
The final this time was 6-0 against, leaving the Blueshirts 1-3 in their opening four matches, outscored 20-6 — 16-3 at even-strength — on their way to St. Louis for Saturday’s match with the formidable Blues.
It would be incorrect to say the Rangers went from bad to worse from San Jose to Anaheim, because the team did at least try against the Ducks after surrendering against the Sharks.
But the fact is the Rangers — playing without Rick Nash, who returned to New York to deal with the concussion he sustained on Tuesday — appeared dazed and confused pretty much from the get-go.
Their defensive zone coverage was as appalling as their defense against the rush. They could not take a man. They could not come up with or clear the puck. They could not create an attack against goaltender Jonas Hiller, who could just have well been a shooter tutor in net for the amount of work he did until the Rangers created a handful of chances in the final five minutes.
The Rangers lacked cohesion. They lacked structure.
Structure? The Blueshirts had the structure of an amoeba.
Tuesday was about effort. Thursday was about execution.
Their own.
The Rangers are playing like a team trying to get a coach fired, not like one playing for a coach just hired.
“We’re being tested as a group, being challenged, and it’s up to me as head coach to get this team to play well and that’s what I’m going to do,” said Alain Vigneault, who is four games into a five-year contract. “[Our mistakes] have nothing to do with the system.”
When the Ducks scored three times in the opening 11:36, the Rangers had been outscored 10-1 over 43:20 of hockey going back to the middle of the second period of the match in San Jose. Three more came in the second against Henrik Lundqvist, who appeared shaken when speaking to the media a half-hour after it ended.
“It’s probably the first time in all my years in New York that we’ve looked this bad,” said the goaltender, a Ranger since 2005-06. “It’s just an awful feeling. I don’t have an explanation; I don’t know what to say.
“But let’s not point fingers. We have to be better. I have to be better,” said Lundqvist, who has a 4.29 goals against average and .879 save percentage. “We all have to step up.”
One Ranger after another insisted adapting to the system preached by the new coach as opposed to the one demanded by John Tortorella was not at the root of their myriad problems.
“Obviously we’re trying new things here and a different look, but hockey is about small details,” Lundqvist said. “On four of the goals, we lost the puck in the wrong areas and that’s deadly.
“Puck management is probably the biggest thing we have to improve on.”
Dan Girardi, who hasn’t resembled himself in the least, said the Rangers must begin to resemble Black-and-Blueshirts of days gone by.
“We have to figure out what the hell is going on,” he said. “We have to get back to being a hard team to play against.
“I can’t tell you why what’s happening is happening. The system we have now is real simple, it’s not some crazy thing that’s so different from what we’re used to.
“But for whatever reason, we seem to be lost.”
Ryan Callahan said: “The effort was a little bit better but not where it needs to be.”
Brad Richards also said this is unacceptable.
“I want to be careful how I say this,” Richards said. “Overall, it was a little bit better but not even close to where it has to be.”
Vigneault dismissed any notion the Rangers’ training camp schedule and season-opening trip are contributing factors to the ice follies.
“There are a lot of theories out there,” he said. “My theory is reality.”
What’s that saying? Oh, right: Reality bites.