NASHVILLE — It took the New York Rangers eight tries to win on home ice this season. It’s going to be at least that long before they capture the second game of a back-to-back.
Sunday’s 2-1 loss to the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena dropped them to 0-6-1 in those situations, with the latest attempt as sluggish as any we’ve seen.
Vincent Trocheck put it more bluntly: “It just looked f—ing dead.”
The Rangers (17-16-4) were nearly shut out for the eighth time this season, which would have taken them halfway to the modern-day worst total of 16 from the 2006-07 Columbus Blue Jackets. (The record of 20 belongs to the 1928-29 Chicago Blackhawks, which came a season before the NHL started allowing forward passes in the offensive zone.) Jonny Brodzinski spared them that indignity by scoring with 37 seconds left, but it only made the loss marginally less embarrassing.
You can count the times the Rangers looked threatening on one hand. You might not even need all five fingers. They registered only 17 shots on goal, their second-worst total of the season, and tied their low mark with a mere four high-danger scoring chances, according to Natural Stat Trick. Even that may have been generous.
“We were late everywhere,” coach Mike Sullivan said. “When you have these nights, I think you’ve got to recognize how to manage the game. You can’t beat yourself. You’ve got to manage the puck. You’ve got to make sure you force them to play goal line to goal line. You can’t give them easy offense. We gave them easy offense. We didn’t manage the puck. We didn’t make any plays. We made high-risk plays. Turned it into a track meet. It’s not a recipe for success.”
They didn’t give up a whole lot, either, outside of Filip Forsberg taking a Ryan O’Reilly drop pass and whipping it by goalie Jonathan Quick at the 10:44 mark of the second period. But the lowly Preds, who entered tied for the NHL’s lowest points total, were in control throughout the evening. They lapped the Rangers in both shots (32) and high-danger chances (eight), with Steven Stamkos’ empty-netter sealing the win shortly before Brodzinski cut it to 2-1.
“I don’t think we executed in any aspect of the game,” Sullivan said.
It’s a painfully boring brand of hockey to watch, especially when it’s clear the Rangers don’t have their legs. They struggled coming out of their own zone, fumbled pucks at both blue lines and failed to establish any forecheck of note. And their power play was woeful once again, with only one shot on goal and multiple botched zone entries across six full minutes with a man advantage. The best scoring chance on any of New York’s three power plays came when Nashville defenseman Nicolas Hague blasted a shorthanded attempt off the crossbar in the second period. It was that kind of night.
“We had chances to do something early on to create a little bit more momentum, try to create a little bit more energy,” center Mika Zibanejad said. “We didn’t.”
The power play tonight was a microcosm of our overall five-on-five game,” added Sullivan, who seemed most frustrated by the Rangers’ inability — or unwillingness — to simplify once it became clear they didn’t have any offensive juice going for them.
You’ve got to be able to win with your ‘B’ game when you don’t have your ‘A’ game,” he said. “And the way you do that is you don’t beat yourself. You force teams to have to make good plays to beat you. You defend hard, you manage the puck, you make them play goal line to goal line. You watch your shift lengths. You change smart. You don’t take offensive-zone penalties. And I just don’t think we did that in any aspect.”
Dealing with injuries, illness and lack of ‘pride’
Some might point to the Rangers’ reliance on over-30 players as the reason for their back-to-back struggles, but the Preds played on Saturday as well, and also have a roster filled with past-their-prime veterans.
“Everybody does it,” Trocheck said. “Everybody has back-to-backs. It’s tiring, but everybody does it. Someone’s going to come out a winner. They played yesterday, and they just played harder than us. We’ve got to be able to be professional, prepare for the game. We have to be better. We have to try harder and have more pride in ourselves.”
This was the Rangers’ fifth game in a grueling span of seven days, but the bigger issue may have been the combination of mounting injuries and a virus that’s running through their dressing room.
Captain J.T. Miller is considered week-to-week with a suspected right-shoulder injury sustained in Saturday’s 5-4 shootout win over the Philadelphia Flyers, while top defenseman Adam Fox missed his 11th straight game due to a left-shoulder ailment. The Rangers anticipated not having either of those key players, but it was announced just before puck drop that forwards Gabe Perreault and Matt Rempe wouldn’t play due to illness.
“We had an idea,” Sullivan said. “They came to the rink this morning not feeling well. They were pretty sick, both of them, so we had a feeling this morning that we probably were going to be without them. This afternoon, we tried to give them an opportunity to rest, get some food in them. Obviously, it’s something that’s going through our team right now. We’ve got a few guys that have it. We’ve got to find a way to fight through it.”
Without 12 healthy forwards on the roster, New York was forced to use 11 while adding a seventh defenseman in Urho Vaakanainen, who was limited to only 3:59 time on ice, including only one shift apiece in the second and third periods.
The Rangers hope to get Perreault and Rempe back for the last game before the Christmas break, which will come Tuesday in Washington against the Capitals. Miller, though, will be a much more difficult absence to manage. A league source stressed he’ll be back before the Olympic break in February and available to play for Team USA if selected, but he’s expected to miss at least a handful of games.
Brodzinski or Taylor Raddysh are the most likely fill-ins, while it will be sink-or-swim time for Perreault and fellow rookie Brennan Othmann, who bumped up from a game-low 4:51 TOI on Saturday to 10:43 in Nashville. It also probably means more time in the top six for veteran Conor Sheary, who remains stuck on one goal through 34 games.
The Rangers’ finishing problem had become impossible to deny even prior to Miller’s injury, and now it could become all-consuming. They can’t score, they can’t win on the second night of back-to-backs — and now they have team leaders calling out a lack of overall effort.
“It sucks not having everybody,” Trocheck said. “It’s obviously a tough spot back-to-back, and then guys are getting sick and guys go down, but that doesn’t affect how we play with pride. If there’s anything to take away from today, we didn’t play with pride.”