NHL

Rangers power play has no juice

Once again, the Rangers power play is that in name only. It has become powerless, unable to produce when it is needed the most.

It couldn’t come at a worse time, as the Blueshirts are fighting for their playoff lives, down 3-0 in the Stanley Cup finals to the mighty Kings after Monday night’s disheartening 3-0 loss at the Garden.

Up a man, the Rangers continued to look lost, coming away empty on six opportunities, four in the first two periods when the game was in reach. Through three games, the Kings have given the Rangers plenty of chances, but the Blueshirts have not been able to make them pay, accounting for a single power-play goal in 14 chances.

“We’re not coming up with as many [pucks] as we want, [we’re] spending a lot of time to break out, try to enter the zone,” Ryan McDonagh said. “When we do have some setups, we have some pretty good shots. We tried to get to second and third pucks, and continue to create chances. That’s all you can do.

“Obviously, if you don’t score, it’s struggling. There are things we want to do better and continue to work at.”

Unfortunately, Alain Vigneault’s club’s struggles up a man aren’t new. It was a major problem early on in the playoffs, when the Rangers’ unit went an astounding 0-for-36 at one point before it came alive late in the Eastern Conference semifinals against the Penguins and remained potent against the Canadiens in the conference finals. But it has become a problem against the Kings and their stalwart penalty kill.

The excuses early in the playoffs was McDonagh was playing through a not quite healed shoulder injury, Rick Nash was slumping and Chris Kreider wasn’t on the ice because of a broken left hand. But McDonagh has come alive, Nash’s play has picked up — though he hasn’t seen consistent time of late on the man advantage until late in the Game 3 loss — and Kreider has returned to be a focal point, though he has yet to score a goal in the series. De-facto captain Brad Richards’ sub-par play hasn’t helped, either.

The Rangers have gone back to waiting for the perfect chance, rather than forcing the issue, creating traffic in front of the net, and making something happen.

“I think when things don’t work we try to switch it up a bit, but special teams are the difference in the league,” Nash said. “And we’ve got to make sure we keep goals out of our net and put it in when we get a power play.”

“Regular season, playoffs, finals — you’ve got to have your special teams clicking.”

Of course, the physically imposing and deep Kings feature a quality kill, 11th in the NHL during the regular season and ninth during the playoffs. Furthermore, goaltender Jonathan Quick has picked up his play, making several big saves Monday night, including back to back beauties on Richards and Derick Brassard in the first period.

“You got to finish in this game,” Vigneault said. “It’s a performance-oriented business. Power play had some looks, but didn’t finish.”