The Rangers’ game is gone, and so is their cushion.
For after yet another match in which the Blueshirts failed to establish either a tone or a first-period presence, after yet another one-goal defeat in regulation, this one 3-2 at the Garden to ninth-place Buffalo, a trip to the playoffs is very much in doubt.
The seventh-place Rangers, who were sitting fairly pretty with a seven-point gap on Jan. 24, now are one point up on the eighth-place Hurricanes, who hold one game in hand, and, more essentially, just three points up on the Sabres, who have three games in hand.
But since defeating the Caps in a shootout in D.C. on Jan. 24, the Rangers have gone 4-9-1, including a 2-9 record in regulation and a 2-8 record in one-goal games.
They are always battling back, always storming down the stretch, always giving themselves a chance with mad scrambles around the net after pulling the goaltender, but inevitably coming up short.
They are coming up short after coming out either flat or indecisive at the start of nearly every game. The relentless, reckless forecheck game off which the Rangers established a tone and their Blue Grit identity the first half of the year is gone.
In Sunday’s 3-2 loss to the Lightning, the Rangers had one shot in the first 19:04. Last night, the Rangers had one shot in the first 11:54.
“I don’t think our starts have necessarily been bad, but they’ve been mediocre,” said Ryan Callahan.
“We haven’t been getting in and taking the body the way we need to, and I can’t explain why. That’s not our game plan, to sit back and be cautious. That’s not the style we want to play at the start at all. We want to get in and establish ourselves, but obviously we haven’t been doing a good enough job at it.”
Brandon Dubinsky, who played like a man possessed the final 10 minutes after the Rangers had trimmed a 3-1 Buffalo lead to 3-2 on Artem Anisimov’s whippet at 6:05, played like a man whose game had been repossessed until then.
Dubinsky, whose 19 goals are second on the club to Brian Boyle’s 20, has gone six games without a point and eight games without a goal. Indeed, Dubinsky has recorded just three goals with eight assists over his last 22 games. And so when he speaks of the “need to come out with a sense of urgency right from the get-go instead of having it when we get behind,” he should recite those words into a mirror.
It’s not only Dubinsky, of course. Coach John Tortorella, in his zeal to get as much skill onto the ice in the absence of the concussed Marian Gaborik, has cobbled together second and third lines that have been disjointed more often than not.
Moreover, by jamming Vinny Prospal into every conceivable situation and by moving Boyle to the right to make way for Erik Christensen while all but abandoning in-your-face grinders Brandon Prust and Sean Avery, Tortorella has unwittingly fiddled with the team makeup and identity.
Tortorella is being extremely careful not to pile on his wobbly team. The coach allowed that the Rangers haven’t been able to establish the tempo and tone consistently enough, but he would not criticize their starts.
Regardless, the Rangers now find themselves in a fight to the finish.