ARI-ZONE OUT
Rangers winless in last five with quick OT loss
The reality of the situation is coming up at the Rangers rather fast, and they know it.
“Obviously we’re not in a great spot right now, and we have to dig ourselves out,” coach David Quinn said after his team managed to steal a point with a 3-2 overtime loss to the visiting Coyotes on Tuesday night at the Garden, extending the Blueshirts’ winless streak to five games.
“Obviously we were better in the second period, and better in the third. But certainly nowhere near where we need to be if we’re going to have a season.”
Already, the specter of sacrificing another season to this rebuild is staring the Blueshirts (2-4-1) in the face. Already, they need a quick turnaround before things start to get away from them — assuming it hasn’t already happened.
“It’s not going to happen overnight,” Quinn said. “I hope it does. But you just have to dig your way out.”
It’s not just the losses piling up that is so disconcerting, but the lapses in play, in focus, in effort, in defending. If it wasn’t for the terrific 32-save performance from Alexandar Georgiev, and two timely goals from Tony DeAngelo, this would have been as disjointed a performance as the 3-2 loss to the visiting Canucks on Sunday — which drew a couple loud voices in the locker room during the second intermission.
No screaming before or after this one, not after the Rangers were outshot 21-4 in the first period, and not after Christian Dvorak beat Georgiev with a slick shot 1:04 into the three-onthree extra period. Quinn, at least, expressed a clear-eyed, candid view of the big picture. But after taking so many lumps this early on, optimism isn’t the easiest thing to find right now.
“It’s going to take a little time, and we’re going to stay at it,” Quinn said. “We know we’re a lot better than this.”
There are flashes of the talent that general manager Jeff Gorton brought in this offseason, but those flashes are often sandwiched by horrendous periods of puck management and defending. So often was the front of the net left wide open, and so often were the Coyotes (5-2-1) of Derek Stepan flying up the ice with speed after a turnover.
The Rangers’ penchant for taking penalties doesn’t help, either. Pavel Buchnevich took one in each of the first two periods, the second resulting in a power-play goal for Alex Goligoski at 13:46 that gave Arizona a 2-1 lead.
DeAngelo equalized that one with a power-play goal of his own, coming on a nice feed from Ryan Strome at 18:00 of the second that made it 2-2. DeAngelo also scored at 5:04 of the second to negate the game-opening goal from Lawson Crouse, that one coming when an attempt at defending in front from Brendan Lemieux left his head spinning.
“Maybe it doesn’t look like we’re desperate, but I think we are,” said DeAngelo, who played his 100th game as a Ranger. “The other teams have had good pushes, and we haven’t found a way to push back fast enough.”
The Rangers certainly got better as the game went on, but that is more an indictment of how bad they were in the first. They ended up having a season-low 19 shots on goalie Darcy Kemper, who didn’t make many memorable saves.
When the Rangers were trying to press in the third period, Quinn cut his bench down, to no avail. Both teams played conservatively into the extra period, but eventually, another game got away from the Blueshirts. They’re just hoping it’s not the season that gets away from them next.
“This game is simple but it’s hard. We’re just not doing the basics of what you need to do to have success right now, consistently,” Quinn said. “Sometimes we do it, more often we don’t do it. You can feel it, we’re in a little bit of a rut. We have to skate, and get our way out of it.”