The New York Rangers are currently skating to an 18-5-1 record, which has them tied for the best win percentage in the National Hockey League. However, those six losses were pretty ugly for how good of a team they have. Former Ranger, Michael Del Zotto shares his thoughts.
This season has been mostly positive for the New York Rangers, but there's still a lot of work and improvement that needs to happen for this group as the year progresses.
That shouldn't be a surprise to anyone.
It's the first year under a new coaching staff, with a team that has faced some injury battles in the early going of the season. It's not going to be a perfect 82 games.
With that said, for whatever reason, when the Rangers lose, they go down in somewhat of an ugly fashion. On the flip side, the good news is that they come out on top more often than not in the close games that they find themselves in.
When you think about the six losses that the Rangers have had this season, there were little spurts in those games that caused it to slip out of their hands.
October 14th at Columbus Blue Jackets: 5-3 Loss
The Rangers found themselves in a 2-1 hockey game in which they trailed. They were outshooting their opponent, but were struggling to find the back of the net. Then, out of nowhere, Columbus scores two goals in a 1:07 span to completely break the game open.
October 19th vs. Nashville Predators: 4-1 Loss
This game was poor right from the opening face-off. The Rangers had no jam.
November 4th at Minnesota Wild: 5-4 SO Loss
The Rangers come out red hot, scoring three goals in the first seven minutes of the game. Then they commit three straight penalties in a 5:10 span giving momentum right to Minnesota. Yes, the Wild may not have converted on those power plays, but they were given life.
The Rangers found themselves hanging onto a 3-0 lead in the second period, but the Wild were able to score two goals in 29 seconds to get themselves back into the game. They would score two more goals in a 3:39 span at the start of the third period to take a 4-3 lead. Fortunately, the Rangers found a way to tie that game and earn a point, but this was another example of that little lapse where they lose focus and control of a game.
November 20th at Dallas Stars: 6-3 Loss
The Rangers appeared to be in full control of this game against a very strong team on the road. They had one of their best first periods of the entire season, leading 1-0 after the first 20 minutes while controlling the pace of play and limiting odd man rushes.
The Rangers had scored one goal and allowed one goal in the second period, taking a 2-1 lead into the final frame. The Dallas Stars scored three goals in a 7:23 span to take a commanding 4-2 lead and ended up running away with that game.
November 27th vs. Buffalo Sabres: 5-1 Loss
This was about as disappointed as I've seen Peter Laviolette this season. The Rangers had a ton of uncharacteristic defensive zone turnovers in the first period and it carried through the entire game. This game was of course after that emotional win against the Boston Bruins.
December 5th at Ottawa Senators: 6-2 Loss
The Rangers just got caught giving up too many chances off the rush, which seems to be a recurring theme right now.
The good news is that the Rangers are competing in most of these losses, the execution is what's lacking in those efforts.
I spoke with Michael Del Zotto on The Blue Crew podcast this week and he said "there are just some nights where you don't have it."
For some teams, adversity like this can be a good thing.
"You have to face that adversity throughout the season to set yourself up for playoffs because you look at Boston last year, they faced zero adversity throughout the season. They just kind of rolled through everyone. Then they get to playoffs, things get a little bit tough. We all know how that went with the first round loss." Del Zotto added.
Full clip with Michael Del Zotto:
All six of the Rangers losses have been mostly lopsided, but again, it shows a lot they're winning the close battles. There have been way more positives than negatives this season and Laviolette will continue to make the game-to-game adjustments that he's done early this season.