Loss to Sharks latest step back
GETTY ANY hope of Saturday’s win being a springboard for a turnaround was erased Monday night when the Rangers, for the fifth time in 10 games, allowed a goal within the first 2:40 and never recovered, falling 4-1 to the Sharks to drop to 2-6-2.
“It’s high,” Rick Nash said of the team’s frustration level. “It’s been going on way longer than we wanted it to. It’s tough right now.”
How much longer can it go? For better or worse, this is the roster the Rangers are going to forge ahead with — a roster that at the moment only has three full-time centers — and Alain Vigneault still believes in it.
“This personnel is good,” he said. “We’ve just got to play the right way. Unfortunately, right now in the 10 games we’ve gotten behind and we’ve gotten behind early. Right now, our inability to find the back of the net is hurting us, but there is definitely skill and talent in that room.”
The Rangers mustered just one goal on 34 shots, 16 of which came in the first, and couldn’t convert on six power plays, all of which came over the first two periods. They could barely gain the zone on their two man advantages in the second.
But though scoring is an issue, the Rangers are letting in 3.6 goals per game. San Jose scored on its first shot of the game at 1:56 on a deflection, but Henrik Lundqvist let in an awful goal at 12:45 of the first when Tim Heed’s sharp-angle shot somehow got through Lundqvist’s legs while he was hugging the near post.
“When we’re in the position we’re in, of course when we start the game chasing, it’s just so much harder,” said Lundqvist, who allowed four goals on 24 shots. He was clipped by Joonas Donskoi after Donskoi scored the third goal. Lundqvist said his leg got twisted but he was fine and remained in the game.
The Sharks went up 3-0 after a Kevin Shattenkirk offensive-zone turnover, and then Lundqvist had the puck stolen from him behind his net by Logan Couture early in the third, leading to an easy San Jose goal that put the Rangers behind by four.
“Tonight was a huge game for us to come out and have a response,” Nash said, “and we didn’t have it.”
Over the next two games the Rangers face two teams who are struggling just as much or worse than they are in Arizona and Montreal. The Rangers need wins in those games.
And that shouldn’t be the case for a team that was constructed for, at the very least, playoff contention. They shouldn’t be facing must-wins in October. These are dire straits.
“It’s not one guy. As a group we have to be better,” Vigneault said. “We’re 10 games in here and we’re 2-6-2. So everybody in that room has got to be better than they are right now.”