Where to start?
REGARDING the Rangers, in crisis six games into the season and with the Penguins coming Tuesday on Broadway.
1. Let us stipulate that the responsibility for this 1-5 start is on the players.
No one on the coaching staff misplayed Artemi Panarin’s game-winning, third-period rush in Columbus on Friday. The Kevins — Hayes and Shattenkirk — conspired to do that.
No one on the staff kidnapped Chris Kreider and kept him in a closet until Saturday night. He alone apparently decided to hide away in plain sight for most of the first five games.
No one from the staff slipped into No. 76 and made that boneheaded turnover 15 seconds into the St. Louis loss Tuesday. That was Brady Skjei in the flesh.
If a coaching change is necessary to catch this team’s attention after four years under Alain Vigneault, shame on the athletes, who sure won’t have it so good playing for someone else.
2. It appears as if everyone underestimated what the loss of Derek Stepan and Dan Girardi would mean. The two pillars of Vigneault’s defense matched up against the opposition’s top guns from Day 1 through the final bitter moments of last year’s elimination by Ottawa before being sent away.
Ryan McDonagh, who for the last six years had a healthy Girardi by his side as if they were Vincent and Jules, has already started games with four different partners — Shattenkirk, Marc Staal, Nick Holden and Tony DeAngelo — as the coach searches for a first-pair matchup.
Perhaps Shattenkirk has been even a bit shakier in his own end than anticipated. Maybe the transition to New York has been more difficult than expected.
Still, it seems impossible to me that Shattenkirk had the fifth most ice time of New York defensemen through the second period of Saturday’s 3-2 defeat to the Devils, trailing McDonagh, Brendan Smith, Skjei and DeAngelo.
No. 22 had 10:08 through 40 minutes (DeAngelo had 10:56) before getting 8:36 in the third period during which the Blueshirts sought to erase the 3-1 hole into which they leaped.
You’re telling me this player in whom the Rangers are investing $6.65 million of cap space per for the next four years is not a topfour defenseman until games have tilted the wrong way?
Advanced and/or peripheral stats never tell the entire story and reveal even less in a sample size as limited as six games. Still, something is not right, here.
In seven previous seasons, Shattenkirk’s Corsi ranged between 51.2 percent (as a rookie) and 55.7 percent for an average of 53.6. He had an average relative Corsi of plus-2.1 percent. As a Ranger, he is at 46.3 and minus-2.8.
3. The situation is a mess down the middle after four years when Vigneault had a 1A/1B pair of Stepan and Derick Brassard or Mika Zibanejad and solid fourth liners in Dominic Moore, Brian Boyle and Oscar Lindberg.
It seems clear that general manager Jeff Gorton and the player personnel staff invested far too much faith over the summer in seventh-overall pick Lias Andersson’s ability to make the jump into the NHL as a 19-yearold.
And, as of now, there apparently is a void in the middle of the fourth line, with Vigneault choosing to go with seven defensemen and 11 forwards Saturday in what can be interpreted as nothing more than a stinging indictment of his choices up front.
Why the Rangers claimed Adam Cracknell off waivers early in the week instead of promoting Vinni Lettieri from the AHL Wolf Pack was beyond me, even before Cracknell was a healthy scratch against New Jersey.
4. It would seem all but impossible to conjure a scenario under which David Desharnais leads the club’s centers in ice time, yet that was the case in Friday’s loss in Columbus, with No. 51 getting 17:49 while Zibanejad was on for 17:26 and Hayes for 14:50.
And true, Hayes has not exactly come bursting out of the starting gate, but the choice of Desharnais over him on a second powerplay unit that has yet to score a goal continues to baffle.
And this: Hayes got one shift over the final 6:13 Saturday and did not get off the bench for the final 3:52, 2:43 of which the Blueshirts played with an extra attacker. Meanwhile, Desharnais (who did set up Rick Nash for the game’s first goal with a nifty pass through the crease after slipping away from Nico Hischier behind the net), was on for 2:15 of the final 5:29.
5. The first line of Kreider, Zibanejad and Pavel Buchnevich, the one unit that has been inviolate since the season-opening puck draw, has scored one evenstrength goal. That was the Zibanejad short-sider against Carey Price in the third period of the third game.
6. Is it premature to call this a five-alarm blaze? Perhaps, and that is up to you, but be aware that the Rangers have started 1-6 only once in franchise history. That was in 1960-61.