Rangers, Devils trending in opposite directions
NEW YORK » As all the signs of a season that’s slowly slipping away have surfaced, the frustration becomes more and more evident for the Rangers.
The window for the Original Six franchise to win the Stanley Cup, which has been wide open for the last decade, has quickly slammed shut. The organization took the unprecedented step of sending an open, honest letter to their fans in which they all but acknowledged the Blueshirts would be entering a rebuilding phase, one that will likely start with the upcoming NHL trade deadline on Monday afternoon.
On the heels of that, and an embarrassing, nationally-televised 7-4 loss to the Flyers on Sunday afternoon, and goaltender Henrik Lundqvist was asked a seemingly innocent question about his state of mind.
“It’s terrible, absolutely terrible,” Lundqvist said. “You live for this, it means so much to all of us. You don’t win, you don’t get the result ... you just have to work really hard to get that feeling you need in the room to play your best. It’s not a good feeling now.”
It certainly wasn’t on Sunday, where defensive lapse after defensive lapse sent the Rangers under “NHL .500” with a 27-28-5 record after their fourth consecutive defeat.
For players like Mats Zuccarello, who’ve been a part of the team’s upswing over the past few years, the slow transition to where they are now has been hard to swallow.
“We’re playing dumb defensively,” Zuccarello said. “We’re letting people beat us to the puck, we’re letting people beat us in front of the net, tips. We’re getting beat up the ice. They got some easy goals today. I don’t think we played a bad game, we created a lot of chances, but it’s hard when you give them easy goals. We work so hard to get a goal right now, and we just give it back to them as easy as that, and it’s not good enough. It’s been going on for too long. You’ve got to be tougher in front of the net. It’s just not good enough.”
So how does that change? Perhaps it doesn’t.
“You know what, I wish I knew,” Zuccarello said. “It’s been like this all season, so I wish I had the answer for you, but I don’t.” ***
On the flip side of what’s happening in Manhattan, the Devils have been making slow and steady progress in Newark towards re-establishing themselves as a perennial playoff team.
However, they ran into a bit of a buzzsaw on Tuesday night; former Flyers netminder Sergei Bobrovsky turned in a stellar performance to help the Columbus Blue Jackets past the Devils, 2-1, putting the Ohio-based club back in a playoff spot.
The two-time Vezina Trophy winner has been a big part of the Blue Jackets recent success, and the recent revolving door in Philly’s net makes that ill-fated 2012 trade (for a second-round pick and two fourth-round picks) look even worse.
“Night in and night out, Bob’s always stellar for us,” said Blue Jackets defense Scott Harrington, who scored the game-winning goal.
“He instills a lot of confidence in us, and he’s a big part of every game that we win. We’re not perfect out there in front of him by any means, and we’re playing a lot of tough teams right now who generate a lot of goals. We’re going to give up opportunities, whether it be odd-man rushes or mistakes in the D zone, and we count on him to bail us out. He did that again tonight, and he’s a big reason why we win these games.” ***
Continuing the trend of local clubs losing at home this week, the Minnesota Wild dropped the New York Islanders, 5-3, in a President’s Day matinee.
The win catapulted the Wild back into a playoff spot in the very competitive Western Conference, and Jason Zucker’s two goals were a big part of them being able to do so.
“As a team, we’re trending in the right direction, which is what matters most,” he said. “I always say if you’re contributing yourself, you better hope you’re helping the team do that as well. We’re getting wins right now, and that’s all I care about.”