HAD TO HAB
MONTREAL — There are words that raise red flags around hockey teams that are struggling, phrases like the lack of “energy” and “compete” and “battle level.”
All of them were uttered inside the Rangers’ locker room and by their coach after one more disheartening loss in an opening month chock full of them, this being a 5-4 defeat to the equally struggling Canadiens on Saturday night at Bell Center.
“When someone questions your effort level and compete, it’s not a good feeling,” captain Ryan McDonagh said. “You want to prove it to yourself and prove it as a group that that’s not what we’re about, that’s not acceptable, that’s not who we are.”
But now at 3-7-2, it is at the very least who the Rangers have been. They might be trying to focus on some of the positives that have been there, but they are not delu- sional in their situation — especially coach Alain Vigneault, who knows how this start reflects on him.
“We’re 3-7-2, that’s alarming to me right now,” Vigneault said. “We need to obviously play better than we have.”
Any fleeting good feeling from beating the winless Coyotes on Thursday night at the Garden went up in a blaze of this first period, when goals from Paul Byron, Alex Galchenyuk and Phillip Danault put them down 3-0. The Rangers have been awful to start the majority of their games this season, but this was as bad a first 20 minutes as they have played since the second game of the season, when they went down 5-1 to the Maple Leafs in Toronto on Oct. 7.
More than that, they were outshot 19-2 and seemed like they were out of it before it even began.
“There is no excuse — we were embarrassed there in the first,” McDonagh said.
It did get better, helped by the Canadiens (3-7-1) hardly being a welloiled machine as they try to bounce back from their worst start in 76 years. For all of the Rangers’ faults, they have been able to fight back in games — which is one of the very few remaining bright spots that would indicate them turning this season around is possible.
It had actually looked hopeful they would pull this one out from under the feet of the Habs when a long Brady Skjei shot bounced in off the back of Tomas Plekanec — with Chris Kreider using Plekanec like a shield to redirect it — making it 4-4 at 7:00 of the third period. But less than three minutes later, backup goalie Ondrej Pavelec continued a theme during his second consecutive start in place of Henrik Lundqvist and gave up a juicy rebound that Danault buried for his second of the night to stand as the game-winner.
“They battle hard in front of the net, so it was really hard for our ‘D’ to handle it,” Pavelec said. “But we were ready for it. We know what they were doing. But again, the first period wasn’t good at all.”
The Blueshirts were a turnover machine in the first period, which kept them trapped in their own zone for long stretches. No reason to pick one person or duo out as the most offensive culprits when Vigneault had this to say:
“Didn’t have a ‘D’ pair that could make a pass.”
But execution is one thing, and effort is another. There was some push with goals from Pavel Buchnevich, Rick Nash and Mika Zibanejad during the comeback, but it wasn’t there from the beginning.
“Total lack of energy, lack of compete,” McDonagh said of the first period. “If I had the answer, I’d tell you.”