The Rangers were DOTS at the Garden on Thursday, officially marked as Dead on their Skates in a soporific 2-1 defeat to the Avalanche that stanched any progress they might have generated with Wednesday’s 2-1 shootout defeat in Brooklyn.
Apparently that physical one against the Islanders in which each team was credited with 52 hits apiece simply took too much out of the Blueshirts, who have fallen on hard times in winning just one out of six (1-4-1) for the first time since going 1-5 in Games 3 through 8 of 2013-14 in Alain Vigneault’s first season behind the bench.
For following a game and night of crackling electricity on the ice and in the building in the first interborough matchup in the city’s history, the Rangers could not generate any energy in a Garden that was, as usual, a vacuum of emotion.
When people around the NHL talk about “The Quiet Room,” whether they know it or not, they are talking about MSG.
And at this moment, the Rangers are a silent team, having scored 10 goals over the past six games; five at 5-on-5, four on the power play and one with the extra attacker, which is how Oscar Lindberg scored the club’s lone goal in this one with 49.5 seconds to go and Antti Raanta pulled from nets.
“It seemed like it was ‘wait and see’ a little bit at the start and it shouldn’t have been that way,” Dan Girardi said. “We should have tried to take control of the game.
“They’re on a long road trip and we maybe should have taken advantage of that and had a really good first and jumped all over them,” the alternate captain said. “But we didn’t do that.”
No, they didn’t. Out of synch from the get-go, lacking the crispness that marked Wednesday’s worthy effort (that only produced one goal, by the way), the Blueshirts seemed baffled by Colorado’s neutral-zone clog.
The Blueshirts could neither zig nor zag their way through the Avalanche. They were unable to pitch the puck in deep and get in on the forecheck. The Rangers generated a minimal amount of zone time and a corresponding paucity of scoring chances.
“It was a frustrating game for us,” said Derick Brassard, who had the puck knocked off his stick by defenseman Francois Beauchemin before he could make a play on a 3-on-1 that came 4 ¹/₂ minutes into the second period of what then was a scoreless game. “At the end of the day, we didn’t make many plays.”
At the end of the day and at the start of it, too. The Avalanche didn’t create many chances themselves against Raanta, but made their opportunities count, getting two goals within 5:36 of the second when Chris Wagner scored in alone at 13:21 off a stretch pass before Matt Duchene converted on a 2-on-1 on which Kevin Hayes was deficient in the neutral zone.
The Brassard-Rick Nash-Mats Zuccarello first line has run dry, and the Rangers at the moment don’t seem to have enough top-six forwards to form a legitimate second line. There is Lindberg, who is tied for the NHL rookie goal-scoring lead with 10 and there is … wait for it … well, don’t bother, for you might be waiting until Derek Stepan (broken ribs) returns sometime around the new year.
Brassard has one goal in his last eight games. Nash hasn’t scored in four following his six-in-four burst. Zuccarello has one goal in his last seven, that one on the power play. If you stop that line, you stop the Rangers.
Because: Hayes hasn’t scored in six games and has one power-play goal in the last 11. Chris Kreider, who had one burst toward the net with 6:10 to go in the third before he was ridden off the play by Brandon Gormley, has scored once in his past 10 matches. J.T. Miller has one power-play goal in the last 11 games. Jesper Fast hasn’t scored in the last dozen.
The ship that had been springing leaks in its own end while bolting to a smoke-and-mirrors 16-3-2 record is capsizing under its own weight.
Not to worry, though; RMS Carpathia is on the way.