{"id":409173,"date":"2026-01-15T16:34:11","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/409173\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T16:34:11","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T16:34:11","slug":"well-continue-to-try-to-solve-it","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/409173\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018We\u2019ll continue to try to solve it\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

The New York Rangers<\/a> are in a tailspin for the second consecutive season, with the latest setback this year coming in an 8-4 shellacking by the Ottawa Senators<\/a> on Wednesday.<\/p>\n

That drubbing came on home ice, where the Rangers are a brutal 5-13-4 to this point in the season, and comes just two games after they were flattened 10-2 by the Boston Bruins<\/a> over the weekend.<\/p>\n

New York was overwhelmed in the opening frame against Ottawa, and went to the locker room for the first intermission down 4-0, making any chance for a comeback victory a long shot. \u201cOur start is not great at all, obviously,\u201d centre Mike Zibanejad told reporters after the game. \u201cWe just dig ourselves a hole, and it\u2019s tough enough to win as it is in this league, and you spot the other team four goals, you\u2019re not making it much easier.\u201d<\/p>\n

Forward J.T. Miller<\/a> was a bit less reserved than Zibanejad after the game. \u201cNo s\u2014,\u201d he said when asked if it was difficult to recover from an early deficit. \u201cI\u2019d like to not be down 4-0 after the first, but after that we responded well. Played with some pride after that.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rangers own a minus-18 goal differential on their current five-game losing skid. As the results continue to get worse, the conversations are getting more difficult in the locker room.<\/p>\n

\u201cEarly on this season, we lost games, but I thought the effort was there,\u201d Zibanejad said. \u201cI\u2019m not saying the effort [isn\u2019t there now], but our game isn\u2019t. I thought we played better, we deserved better early on [in the season], but right now, we don\u2019t. And that\u2019s a tough pill to swallow.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rangers have won just two of their past 11 games to fall to the bottom of the Eastern Conference standings.<\/p>\n

\u201cI just think when you\u2019re going through the struggles we\u2019re going through, your confidence isn\u2019t at an all-time high, especially early on in the game,\u201d head coach Mike Sullivan said afterwards about the team\u2019s slow start. \u201cIt can affect the mindset of the group. And that\u2019s been our challenge, trying to find a way to keep some resilience, keep a competitive spirit, enthusiasm, any adjective you want to use.\u201d<\/p>\n

This mid-season collapse mirrors the struggles the team went through a season ago. After a strong 12-4-1 start through the middle of November, the Rangers went ice-cold for a stretch over almost two months, going 5-16-0 over their next 21 games to plummet out of a playoff spot.<\/p>\n

The free fall this season has led to fans chanting \u201cFire Drury\u201d in the stands during Wednesday night\u2019s game, targeting team president and general manager Chris Drury<\/a>, who oversaw a team that made trips to the Eastern Conference Finals in two of his first three seasons, but is in the midst of a thoroughly disappointing campaign for the second year in a row.<\/p>\n

One potential move to help get the team going in the right direction would be to ship star forward Artemi Panarin<\/a> out to acquire prospects or younger players. Panarin is an unrestricted free agent at the end of the season.<\/p>\n

A potential trade will have some roadblocks, despite the fact that Panarin has led the Rangers in scoring in six consecutive seasons. Panarin has a full no-trade clause, and at 34 and seeking a new deal, a potential new team will have to contend with giving an aging player a new contract after giving up assets to acquire him. <\/p>\n

Trades will certainly be on the table to inject more youth and long-term hope into the lineup, but it will not be easy to right the ship in New York.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve run through the gamut of emotions here, trying to right this thing and get it going the right direction,\u201d said Sullivan. \u201cAnd we\u2019ll continue to try to solve it. There\u2019s no easy answers. We\u2019ve got to work hard. We\u2019ve got to work together. We\u2019ve got to stick together. We\u2019ve got to stay together. We\u2019ve got to compete together. And that\u2019s what we\u2019re going to do.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The New York Rangers are in a tailspin for the second consecutive season, with the latest setback this…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":409174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[4759,5,3328,35,33359,5190,5193,4,36],"class_list":{"0":"post-409173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-new-york-rangers","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-hockey","10":"tag-new-york","11":"tag-new-york-rangers","12":"tag-new-york-rangers-sports-hockey-team-team-nhl-api-3","13":"tag-newyork","14":"tag-newyorkrangers","15":"tag-nhl","16":"tag-rangers"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115900085949825291","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=409173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/409173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/409174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=409173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=409173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=409173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}