The shine is off the Rangers’ start, even if the record is a most impressive 10-4-1 that anyone in the organization would have taken if presented with that option before the season commenced in Prague.
Still, the Blueshirts’ slip is showing following last night’s 2-1 defeat by the Islanders at the Garden that, paired with Saturday’s 5-2 debacle in Toronto, sends the team into tomorrow night’s match against the Lightning without a point in consecutive games for the first time.
The power play was disgraceful last night, surrendering a pair of shorthanded goals off a pair of two-on-ones 4:42 apart early in the third of what had been a scoreless game when Michal Rozsival made two most unwise plays and his teammates were unable to cover for his blunders.
The Rangers, who went 0-for-4 with the man advantage, have allowed an NHL-worst five shorthanded goals while only scoring 10 PPG’s of their own. They are 10-for-74 overall on the PP, 27th in the NHL at 13.4 percent. They are 5-for-50 over the last 10 games.
“The power play has to take responsibility for this game,” Chris Drury said after Tom Renney lectured his team. “It’s unacceptable.”
Rozsival was beaten on a pinch that led to Nate Thompson’s score at 3:18 before for throwing a soft lateral across the top of the offensive zone that was picked off by Richard Park before he beat Henrik Lundqvist at 8:00. Markus Naslund got the Rangers’ goal at 18:19.
“I take responsibility for having two mistakes that cost us the game,” said Rozsival. “There’s no excuse for that. Everybody in this room played well. I just made two mistakes and that cost us the game.”
Not quite, for the fact is that many Rangers did not play well even with a 29-12 shots advantage through two periods against Joey MacDonald.
Brandon Dubinsky, whose game has been slipping for over a week, reached his nadir. Aaron Voros had another too quiet game. Nikolai Zherdev was average. Drury wasn’t good at all. Scott Gomez was erratic. Wade Redden continued to turn almost every play available to him into a soft, ineffective one.
Renney was fuming, and it wasn’t only because of the amazingly inept power play. The Rangers did not assert themselves physically. They have no intimidating physical force. Instead, they allowed Andy Sutton to menace their small forwards anywhere he pleased.
“I’m [ticked] right off,” said the head coach. “We need to get a little more dirt on our faces, need to get nicked up a little. It’s the whole game; the entire game. We’ve lost two in a row for a reason.”
If the Rangers have lost two straight for a reason, it is not unreasonable to question why Renney and PP coach Perry Pearn refuse to change the personnel on the failing unit. Showing support for players is one thing; being 27th overall on the PP without making dramatic changes is quite something else again.
“Tom didn’t talk about the power play only,” said Lundqvist, who chose not to elaborate on the talk. “The important thing is we all have to take responsibility for this, we all have to look in the mirror and be better, and that starts with me.”
Renney and Pearn might want to get in line for looks themselves.