{"id":410511,"date":"2026-01-16T09:08:19","date_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:08:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/410511\/"},"modified":"2026-01-16T09:08:19","modified_gmt":"2026-01-16T09:08:19","slug":"rangers-at-loss-for-words-of-how-directionless-season-has-gone-down-hill-so-fast","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/410511\/","title":{"rendered":"Rangers at loss for words of how directionless season has gone down hill so fast"},"content":{"rendered":"

From the perch of Mika Zibanejad, this has been different. The Rangers still lost plenty of games at the start of the season. Still unintentionally constructed the shaky foundation that has since cratered all the way to last place in the Eastern Conference.<\/p>\n

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But the \u201ceffort was there,\u201d Zibanejad said Wednesday, after the Blueshirts lost, 8-4, to the Senators<\/a> and hit another low in a 48-game stretch full of them. The process was sound. The Rangers were content with how they performed, even as they started 3-5-2 and didn\u2019t win a home game until Nov. 10. Inside the desolate dressing room at the Garden, Zibanejad wanted to be careful. He didn\u2019t want to imply that the Rangers weren\u2019t putting in effort now.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I\u2019m just saying I thought our game played better,\u201d Zibanejad said. \u201cWe deserved better early on. \u2026 And that\u2019s a tough pill to swallow, and we have to find a way to, I don\u2019t know \u2014 it\u2019s definitely a challenge. We\u2019re right in it right now, and we have no other option than to just go right through.\u201d<\/p>\n

Everything managed to get worse for the Rangers on Wednesday. They were booed \u2014 with \u201cfire Drury\u201d chants \u2014 on their home ice, their goaltender was pulled after allowing six unanswered goals and they lost for the ninth time in 11 games.<\/p>\n

\"J.T.<\/p>\n

J.T. Miller (left), Mika Zibanejad and Scott Morrow react on the ice during the second period of the Rangers\u2019 loss to the Senators at Madison Square Garden on Jan. 14, 2026. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n

They\u2019ve lost any semblance of the consistency that followed this group when it was a legitimate contender. The roster could look entirely different by the second week of March, when the dust from the trade deadline settles and the reality of Chris Drury\u2019s sell-or-not-to-sell decision takes shape.<\/p>\n

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And in the present, the Blueshirts are left grappling with how different they are from the version they thought they assembled in October with plenty of returning pieces.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gone through a rash of emotions,\u201d coach Mike Sullivan said Wednesday when asked about his group\u2019s lack of pushback or fight after falling behind. \u201cThere\u2019s been tons of anger. \u2026 We\u2019ve run through the gamut of emotions here trying to right this thing and get it going in the right direction. And we\u2019ll continue to try to solve it.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rangers\u2019 most pressing challenge currently revolves around their own mindset, Sullivan said. They\u2019ve abandoned an instinctive approach \u2014 one oozing with \u201cgood swagger and confidence\u201d \u2014 and have instead started forcing things, which impacts their decisions. They are, overall, just trying too hard, even if the appearance doesn\u2019t always resemble that, and center Vincent Trocheck echoed a similar sentiment.<\/p>\n

Across the first 19 games of the season, when the Rangers weren\u2019t rewarded with points despite sound play but still ended up with a 10-7-2 mark, they allowed 2.5 goals per game. A shutout loss to the Capitals on Oct. 12 featured the caveat of \u201cthis type of game is the kind of game that we\u2019re trying to build\u201d from Sullivan. The Blueshirts fell to the powerful Avalanche in overtime Dec. 6, but settling for a point seemed acceptable given the type of game they played.<\/p>\n

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During their past 29 games, that goals-per-game number has ballooned to 3.4 amid a disastrous 10-15-4 stretch. The Senators surpassed that average by the time the first period ended.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve gotta play the game hard,\u201d Sullivan said Wednesday, \u201cand that\u2019s some of the discussions we\u2019ve had with the group is playing the game with a competitive spirit and playing the game hard \u2014 being willing to skate, being willing to embrace contact, going to the hard areas, winning puck battles, things of that nature. But we have to play smart also.<\/p>\n

\"Vincent<\/p>\n

Vincent Trocheck battles with Artem Zub during the first period of the Rangers\u2019 loss to the Senators. JASON SZENES\/ NY POST<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a whole lot more difficult to be collective effort than it is to be isolated effort, and I think we\u2019re not quite connected like we were and that\u2019s what we\u2019ve gotta get back to.\u201d<\/p>\n

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This isn\u2019t the Rangers group from the start of the year, when they hovered around the playoff cutline. This isn\u2019t the formidable group from past seasons, either \u2014 the comeback kings, the dynamic power-play scorers, the formidable top six packed with goal-scoring options. Drury\u2019s latest coaching hire in Sullivan hasn\u2019t generated the intended spark, unlike when Gerard Gallant and Peter Laviolette were hired and campaigns with 100-plus points followed.<\/p>\n

Despite wanting to never feel what they did during last Saturday\u2019s 10-2 Boston embarrassment again, a night like Wednesday materialized just days later.<\/p>\n

And it served as the latest reminder of how far the Rangers have fallen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"From the perch of Mika Zibanejad, this has been different. The Rangers still lost plenty of games at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":410512,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5111],"tags":[1473,193,8174,154,5,2685,160,1955,3328,35,5190,5193,4,36,9571,33,3042],"class_list":["post-410511","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-york-rangers","tag-artem-zub","tag-avalanche","tag-blueshirts","tag-boston","tag-hockey","tag-j-t-miller","tag-mika-zibanejad","tag-mike-sullivan","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-newyork","tag-newyorkrangers","tag-nhl","tag-rangers","tag-scott-morrow","tag-the-rangers","tag-vincent-trocheck"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/channels.im\/@nhl\/115903995482049840","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410511","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=410511"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/410511\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/410512"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=410511"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=410511"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rawchili.com\/nhl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=410511"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}