Fond farewell
Rangers want strong end to their season
Across the room, minutes apart late Saturday night, Mika Zibanejad and Henrik Lundqvist used the same word to describe the toll all the losing has taken on the Rangers.
They were getting ready to fly home after a six-day, four-game road trip that featured another loss in overtime, a loss marred by two of their own getting ejected, a loss when their coach said they finally caved to their reality and one final loss when they simply weren’t good enough with the puck.
“It’s not fun,” Zibanejad said after the final dagger, a 5-2 loss to the Wild. “It’s draining, I’m not going to lie.”
“Winning makes everything easier. Losing makes everything tougher,” Lundqvist said. “Come to practice, travel, everything. It’s draining. But there’s no other way than to go to work every day, practice, game, whatever it is and commit to our game plan, commit to your own preparation and everything that’s being a pro. We’re pushing for that and we’re going to stay committed here down the stretch.”
The final march begins Tuesday, the first of the last 10 games of the season, when the Rangers host the Red Wings at the Garden. They will try to pick up their first win against a team not named the Devils since edging the Hurricanes Feb. 19. Since then, they have lost 11-of-13, plummeting towards better odds for a high draft pick when the pingpong balls settle for the NHL draft lottery on April 9. Until then, the Rangers will try to stop the bleeding and salvage some kind of positive before they break for the offseason.
“No one’s checked out by any means,” Zibanejad said. “That’s something we’ve been talking about as well, not just before this game. We’re trying to finish on a high note. You lose 10 straight here … I don’t think anybody’s going into the offseason happy. I don’t think we’re going to go into the offseason happy if we win 10 straight either, but at the same time, you can definitely have a better feeling.”
Lundqvist was quick to diagnose the rising issue Saturday night after the Rangers hand-fed the Wild two of their goals — just as they did for the Flames on Friday night and the Canucks two nights before that — with careless turnovers. For as much as the Rangers’ lack of offense is a glaring problem, so too is the way they continue to be sloppy with the puck.
“I feel like we’re not really understanding how we have to play to have success,” Lundqvist said. “For years, we were a good team because we knew what we had to do. I understand it’s a process now for us to develop and get better, but you need to manage the puck. That’s something you just have to decide. You do it or you don’t do it. When you force plays, it’s going to cost you.”
Coach David Quinn was looking forward to addressing that and more on Monday, when the Rangers were set to get on the ice for practice for the first time in more than a week. Only eight of them, plus two goalies, skated for Tuesday’s practice in Vancouver before they called off Thursday’s practice in Calgary.
After taking Sunday off to recover from the trip, there was work left to be done.
“Listen, when you’re going through what we’re going through, it’s tough mentally,” Quinn said. “… I don’t think it’s the road trip itself, I just think it’s what we’ve been going through. We just gotta keep fighting and moving forward. We get to address some things in practice [Monday], which we haven’t had the chance to do in a while. Hopefully that’ll help us.”