NHL

Coyote ugly: Rangers flop in season-opening loss

GLENDALE, Ariz. — The Rangers sure have a lot of improving to do — and quickly — following Thursday night’s opening 4-1 defeat to the Coyotes in which sloppiness prevailed at both ends of the ice.

“We just made too many mistakes regarding the way we have to play, no matter who’s the coach, that has nothing to do with it,” Brad Richards told The Post following Alain Vigneault’s debut behind the bench. “We want to play a certain way, and we’re going to have to work on it if we want to get there.

“We’re in the regular season now. There are no excuses.”

The Rangers want to be hard on the puck. They weren’t, at least not nearly enough. They want to create sustained forecheck pressure and get to the front of the net. They didn’t do either, again, at least not nearly enough. They want to be — and have to be — crisp in their own end. They weren’t, at least not much at all.

“You have to give credit where credit is due,” Vigneault said, the coach praising the Coyotes and goaltender Mike Smith’s puck-handling skills for negating the Blueshirts’ forecheck game. “Their goaltender handles the puck very well but we’re party responsible, too, because we have to put the puck in the corners, which we weren’t that efficient at doing.”

The Rangers really weren’t very efficient at all. Though things were not as haphazard as they appeared throughout the exhibition season, the Blueshirts still were way too sloppy. Shifts were too long. They didn’t marshal enough puck support on the rush and were out of the zone about as quickly as they could gain it throughout most of the up-tempo match.

They also were negligent at the other end, especially below the hash marks and in front of the net where blunders allowed the Coyotes to seize control of the match that was tied 1-1 in the second until Radim Vrbata scored the second of his three goals at 7:08 soon after a Phoenix power play expired.

The Rangers killed that penalty, but at great expense. They could not clear the zone, and were pinned until Vrbata banged home his own rebound after Lundqvist had made a stop on Derek Morris’ drive from the point. Vrbata got a power play goal early in the third as the match deteriorated.

“Obviously we had a couple of breakdowns that cost us,” said Lundqvist, who looked ordinary in facing 32 shots. “They came with a lot of speed and their defense joined the rush, which made it tough for us to be able to control them.”

The Rangers were pretty much one-and-done on the five-on-five attack, unable to generate meaningful possession time. Rick Nash was all but invisible at even strength, except when he dropped his gloves to fight Martin Hanzal at 17:56 of the third after the Coyote had hammered Derek Stepan.

The Rangers’ defensemen joined the rush when they could, but they were not crisp enough on breakouts. Their own-zone positioning was suspect, as well.

“I think we have to figure out when is the right time to be aggressive in our own end,” Staal said. “There were shifts when I thought we were good at it, but there were other times when we were tired and couldn’t get the puck back.

“We’re going to have to learn from this.”

They also are going to have to learn reasonably quickly and will have to develop an identity on the road and on the fly, with matches coming up in Los Angeles on Monday and San Jose on Tuesday before two in Anaheim and St. Louis later in the week.

“It’s not like we’re going to talk about it tonight and be perfect tomorrow,” Richards said. “But we have to correct our mistakes and get down to how we have to play.

“If we don’t, it’s going to be a long trip.”