Although the New York Rangers won their last game, a 7-2 victory over the Ottawa Senators, they have been playing mediocre hockey since the beginning of December. The team started the season 18-4-1, but since the start of December, they are 14-11-2 and are 4-5-1 in their last ten games. With the Rangers now entering their bye week, now seems like a good time to look at the team and see what the issues are.
The main issues are coming from the core and highest-paid players on the roster. Many of them have been inconsistent this season and this inconsistency has been seen in the past, most notably in the past two playoffs. If the Rangers want to win a Stanley Cup, they need their core players to play better and if they can’t start playing that way, some hard conversations need to be had and some tough choices might need to be made.
Top Players Are Playing Inconsistently
Out of the team’s top seven highest-paid players, the only two that have been worth the money they are making this season are Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck. They have been the best duo for the Rangers all season long and Panarin just hit the 30-goal mark for his second time as a Ranger and is on pace to shatter his previous highs of 32 goals and 96 points. The other three forwards who make up five of the seven highest-paid players that are currently playing are Mika Zibanejad, Chris Kreider and Barclay Goodrow. These three have been very inconsistent all season long. Zibanejad is in one of the worst slumps of his career, with just two goals in the past 15 games, and only seven goals at five-on-five this season. Goodrow only has one goal and while Kreider has 23 goals, he has had stretches where he is unnoticeable for games at a time. This is unacceptable for the players who are taking up the most money on the team.
Even on the backend, both Adam Fox and Jacob Trouba, the two highest-paid defensemen on the team, have had their struggles. Fox has looked better as of late but struggled coming back from an injury that kept him out for over a month. Trouba had a great start to the season and he and K’Andre Miller were a great shutdown pairing. Now, they are the pairing who are on the ice for the most goals against each game. Something changed in their games over the past two months and it has not been for the better. Coming out of this break, these top-paid players need to find their game again and start more consistently like they have in seasons past.
Recent Playoff Collapses
Over the last two playoffs, one theme has been common for the Rangers: their inability to close out a series when they have a 2-0 series lead. It happened in 2022, when they went up 2-0 on the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final, and again in 2023, this time in the first round against the New Jersey Devils. They lost in six games to the Lightning, while losing in Game 7 to the Devils. The Rangers were not able to adjust to the changes their opponents made and it cost them two series and even a chance at making a Stanley Cup Final. Some of the blame was put on Gerard Gallant, who was the coach at the time of these losses. However, when it happens two years in a row, the blame also has to fall on the players who never changed what they were doing even though it wasn’t working anymore.
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When Panarin and Zibanejad combined for one goal in the seven games against New Jersey, that falls on them, not the coach. Panarin’s style of play is especially not made for the playoffs. He loses the time and space to make plays very quickly and he could never adjust to try and help his team win. When they went up 2-0 against the Devils, everyone thought the Rangers would win the series because they saw last season just how quickly they could lose that series lead. And what happened? They lost the series again and failed to learn from their mistakes. With these core players still around, it’s hard to imagine them ever getting to the promised land if they can’t learn from the past and fix the mistakes that cost them two series wins.
Overall Lack Of Heart And Willingness To Play Hard
Their last game against the Senators is a perfect example of how the core players don’t have the heart and the drive to win. They went down 2-0 early in the second period and coming off a loss to the Vegas Golden Knights the night before, many thought the team would lose yet again. However, they would go on to score seven straight goals to win. But, it wasn’t any of the core players who got the team back into the game, it was Connor Mackey playing in his first game as a Ranger that got them back into it. He had a fight with Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, and that is what sparked the team to victory, not Zibanejad, not Kreider, but a guy who has been playing for their American Hockey League (AHL) team this season. This was one of the only times recently that the Rangers were able to fight back and win and while the core players scored goals, they were not the reason for the comeback.
In this recent stretch of poor play, the Rangers would give up two quick goals and that would be game over for them. They wouldn’t put in the effort to even try and make a comeback, they would simply give up. This team looks as far from a Stanley Cup contender as possible right now. The core players haven’t stepped up in the ways they should have this season. When the game gets tough, they need to be the ones to bring the team back to life and that just hasn’t happened this season.
It is going to be up to the players to prove that they do have the heart and the drive to win. They need to prove it to themselves, management and the fans. If they don’t and the Rangers go out early in the playoffs again and these same players have the same problems, changes are going to be made this summer and some of them won’t be here next season.