The Rangers' weaknesses need to be examined.
The Rangers' weaknesses need to be examined.
The Maven recently asserted that the Rangers – to prove they are an elite team – had to play well against three strong teams; Colorado, Carolina and Boston. The Avalanche provided the first test yesterday.
Alas, the Blueshirts are oh-for-one based on what turned out to be a horrendous Garden give-away of a possible one or two-pointer.
Every single, high-priced key New York character failed them from goaltender to defense to leading scorer to the beleaguered coach.
Turning a wonderful come-from-behind story into a gory disaster tale wasn't easy but Peter Laviolette orchestrated it just the same.
"Right now," says The Old Scout, "this is the worst loss of the season. "They had the tired Avs on their heels; they got a late power play; and they should have gotten two points out of the game; not zero!"
Start with the fact that Igor Shesrterkin's made a measly 16 saves while giving up five goals.
As for "team defense," which the Rangers had been boasting about the other night; well, forget it. My super scout Jess Rubenstein studied the subject yesterday. His conclusion?
"Don't let the score fool you. Except for the fourth line, the team played terrible defense."
The most egregious failure was committed at the end of the power play by the normally fleet Artemi Panarin after Will Borgen's horribly bad pass was intercepted by Cale Makar who set up the winner.
No alibis, please. The Breadman skated like he was carrying 1,400 loaves of challah to the oven. Ergo: he was useless in deleting the scoring thrust when he should have been on top of the play.
Laviolette is as much to blame as anyone. What was Borgen doing on the power play to begin with; or is he suddenly being groomed to be the East Coast version of Makar?
A reminder: The Maven's call the other day was this: 1. Rangers sweep the next three games with the tough teams and they'll qualify as a Cup contender. Two out of three wouldn't be too bad. One of three? N.G.
Carolina, which never has fully solved its goaltending issues, will be at MSG tomorrow.
"If New York loses this one," The Old Scout concludes, "it will have proven once again that while the Rangers thrive against the weaker teams they won't be able to handle the big boys in the playoffs!"
Time – and tomorrow night – will tell!