Rangers seek winning ways
THE Rangers have made themselves harder to play against in the last few weeks, even if that wasn’t a difficult task, considering their 3-9-2 disaster from Nov. 25-Dec. 20 left nowhere to go but up.
So they have regrouped to a 6-4-1 record in their last 11, and that brings them to Thursday morning’s practice in Greenburgh, where it is time, with three games before the All-Star break, for the Blueshirts to resolve that enough is enough.
Enough of talking about positives while see-sawing between wins and losses. Enough of chalking up frequent losses to the NHL’s competitive nature, which rings hollow after one of the worst stretches of Rangers hockey in years did not send them plummeting down the standings because the Metropolitan Division is horrendous.
The Rangers (25-16-5, 55 points), a team that has defined winning for most of the last four years, have not won consecutive games since before Thanksgiving. Their 8-11-3 road record is dragging down their 17-5-2 mark at home.
The proud, core leadership of this team is well aware. It bothers them, and it is time they put an end to that unfortunate 25-game malaise on Friday night in Raleigh. Their favorite chew toy, the Carolina Hurricanes (20-19-8, 48 points), will be playing their second game of a back-to- back. Anything less than a regulation win should be considered beneath the Rangers — if, that is, they are the underappreciated, improving team that Alain Vigneault claims critics unfairly doubt.
“What I’m seeing is what I’ve been telling everybody here for, I want to think, the past three weeks to a month: We are playing better five-on-five,” Vigneault said after the Rangers needed overtime Tuesday to beat a bad Canucks team that they dominated most of the night. “We are doing a lot of better things with and without the puck. We are gonna make some mistakes, but we’re doing a lot of better things.
“We need to get our special teams back on track,” the coach added. “We’re gonna continue to work at that, and I think the way we’re improving as a group right now, we’re on the right path.”
That’s exactly the point, though. The Rangers are on the right path, in second place in the division despite all of their shortcomings. It is imperative that they create real separation to protect that playoff seed now rather than leaving their fate to some opponents’ late-season charge or blockbuster trade.
No one in the Eastern Conference wants to face a seasoned Rangers core in a playoff series. It is time that the Blueshirts reaffirm why that is. They must distance themselves from the pack of the Islanders, Penguins, Flyers, Devils and Hurricanes to guarantee they’ll get to the postseason first.