Rangers have to finish before they’re finished
RICK Nash shook his head, maybe visualized one of the handful of point-blank opportunities he could not covert in this one or the bushel of point-blank chances on which he has come up all but empty on this season, and kind of smiled. Or maybe grimaced. “Where you’re having a year when everything goes in, you hit the post but the rebound goes off the goalie and trickles in, or the goalie gets his pad on it, but instead of the puck going through the crease and out, it goes into the net,” Big 61 told The Post. “But when they’re not going in, those pucks all bounce the wrong way. “And it looks like this.” It looks like Nash unable to score despite five shots on Jaro Halak that included four one-on-one chances below the hash marks in the Rangers’ 4-3 shootout defeat to the Islanders at the Garden on Thursday that leaves the team with a demoralizing 1-5-2 record.
It looks like Nash, who came into the season shooting 12.3 percent for his career, at 2.9 percent for the season with one goal on 34 shots. It looks like the nightmare of the 2014 playoff run to the finals that seems much further away than a glance in the rearview mirror might indicate, when Nash did it all except finish his chances, getting three goals on 83 shots.
“I’m not questioning myself or feeling a lack of confidence around the net; not at all,” said Nash, who has been in the middle of just about everything for the Rangers and that unfortunately includes allowing Mathew Barzal to get by him down the left boards for the goal that gave the Islanders a 3-1 lead early in the second period. “The first four games I wasn’t playing with enough confidence, but I feel good with the puck.
“It’s just not going in. It’s amazing what happens when they’re not going in.”
The first 15 days of the season that only seem like 150 have been amazing. The Rangers have played six home games and have trailed by at least two goals in five of them. Henrik Lundqvist, beaten on an Anders Lee power-play rebound at 2:40 of the first period on the Islanders’ third shot, has allowed a goal on the first shot twice and on the third shot three times.
Inevitably, Lundqvist elevates his game to formidable heights and so do the Rangers come storming back. But for all of their admirable rallies, not one has resulted in a victory. The lone win came on a shutout against Montreal in the third game.
“I wish I knew what to say about our starts,” said Mats Zuccarello, who had his most involved game of the year and scored the goal that brought the team within 3-2 early in the third period. “We talk about it all the time as a team and it keeps happening. I can’t explain it.
“It’s tough to win hockey games when you have to chase. It takes a lot of energy chasing, so maybe when you catch up there’s not a lot left. I don’t know what to say, to be honest with you. It’s just really tough right now. Everyone has to be better.”
The Rangers have made the playoffs seven straight years and in 11-of-12 in the salary-cap era that commenced in 2005-06. Very few Rangers have ever played on bad NHL teams. But Nash played for some very bad teams in Columbus before coming to Broadway during the summer of 2012.
“Unfortunately, there were times when we went into December needing to go unbeaten the rest of the season to have a chance at making the playoffs,” Nash said with only a slight dollop of hyperbole. “We’re obviously not at that point here, but we’re digging a hole that we can’t have get much bigger.
“The bad teams I’ve been on, guys get away from the game plan, they don’t give the effort and there’s finger-pointing, whether in the room between guys; from the coach; or in the media. That’s what happens when things get away from you as a team.
“None of that is happening here,” No. 61 said. “We’re together and we’re focusing on taking this one step at a time.”
Forward, one presumes.