Of all the concerns about the Rangers, among them their inability to find the defensive lockdown game that identified the club last season, the most disturbing is the diminished play of Brad Richards, who had such a difficult time last night he was benched for all but one shift in the third period of the Blueshirts’ 4-3 shootout loss at the Garden to the Islanders.
Richards, who got a pair of shifts in overtime, could not get out of his own way, let alone elude opponents. Moving the puck not only became impossible, so did holding on to it through an unsettling series of shifts in a second period during which the Islanders scored three times in a span of 6:56 to take a 3-2 lead before Carl Hagelin knotted it midway through the period.
“It’s on me,” said a somber Richards, who did show speed in the first in going to the net for a shot and then his own rebound that Marian Gaborik converted for a 2-0 lead at 11:28. “I couldn’t make a play in the second; there’s really not much else [to say].”
The bottom fell out on Richards during a stretch early in the second period when the Rangers had a power play of 3:27 that included 33 seconds of five-on-three. That’s when Richards repeatedly turned over the puck, allowing the Islanders to seize momentum.
“I was trying too hard there,” said Richards, who has four points (0-4) the last eight games. “I wanted to move the puck, I was trying too hard and that’s why I got into jams.
“I’m smarter than that.”
Coach John Tortorella, who elevated Brian Boyle into Richards’ spot between Gaborik and Ryan Callahan, answered in the affirmative when asked if benching the 32-year-old pivot was “a drastic step.”
“It’s a pretty big hole to fill but I felt I had to,” said Tortorella. “He was struggling. [But] it’s not at all for lack of effort.”
The Rangers will address their alignment before Sunday night’s match at the Garden against the Capitals. They also will have to address their propensity to go into lulls while yielding goals in bunches and in a hurry, this one following Tuesday’s match in Boston in which the Bruins scored three times within a span of 8:16 in the third to erase a 3-0 Rangers lead.
“We just came out flat for the second period,” Marc Staal said. “I don’t know whether they got [chewed out] between periods, but we just weren’t ready for them and before we knew it, they had three goals.”
The Rangers actually lost momentum over the final five minutes of a first period they had dominated. The Islanders scored 29 seconds into the second, and then, after outworking the Rangers’ during the Blueshirts’ lengthy power play, scored at 6:45 and 7:25 to take the lead.
“As players, it’s our responsibility to recognize when momentum surges happen and what we can do to change that,” said Martin Biron, who yielded those three goals on four shots, including John Tavares’ tying score that was marginal.
“For a goalie, that’s making the big save. The second goal handcuffed me. If I had made the big save there, that might have stopped it right then.”
The Rangers did steady the rest of the way before the Islanders beat Biron on both shootout attempts to win.
Now the Rangers, 7-5-1 after this end to their three-game winning streak, look for answers. So, critically, does Richards.