I can promise you that the Rangers don’t think their problem is behind the bench with the head coach. No one in the team hierarchy wants to point a finger at David Quinn. Nobody wants to have to change coaches.
But games like this, in which the Blueshirts completely collapsed on the ice in the Garden, losing 5-2 to a team of the Devils that had not played a game since January 31 and had only one practice with which to prepare … well, can such games force club president John Davidson to ask a few specific questions about what the hell is going on here?
Boy, boy, boy. It was so smelly.
After a game in which the Devils had the first and third period and jumped with three goals in the last 20 minutes to open a 2-2 contest, Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider – a pair of the biggest culprits of the team 4-7-3 escape – no chopped words at all.
“We lacked a bit of despair to be honest with you,” said Zibanejad, last year’s 41-goal scorer, who was stuck in one of 11 consecutive games. “Throughout the game, we didn’t get to the level we needed.
“We have to find a way to do it.”
The rangers were either in the lead or tied in two periods in 11 of the 14 contests. However, they only won four times. It is not enough to suggest that Zibanejad’s awful start or Kreider’s negligible impact in most cases is the main cause of what the team is suffering from, although few clubs can overcome the lack of productivity in its biggest weapons.
I’m not anymore. The Rangers, who won 18 of 26 immediately after Igor Shesterkin’s promotion to Broadway in January last year, forgot how to win. It’s more than having the worst five-to-five shooting percentage in the NHL. Or maybe there’s just less there than it seems.
Quinn, who appeared during the post-game Zoom call with the media, as she did in most years of her term, was asked if it was an effort.
“Uh, yeah,” he said, looking as beaten as his team.
When a team loses due to effort, at least part of it has to go back to the coach? I’ll answer that: Uh, yeah.
All the improvements in the defensive zone – no, in the last 20 minutes in which the Blueshirts passed without the injured Jacob Trouba – do not seem to rise to a bean hill compared to the problems facing this club.
“For a majority of the game they overtook us, they overtook us, they overtook us, they won most of the fights,” Kreider said. “I mean, chances are, I got rid of the things I did well.”
So this is the quote from Kid K: “They wanted more. It is unacceptable. ”
The rangers were not canceled in this by the power play. They did not attract a single advantage for man for the first time this year. They dominated much of the second period in which the Ryan Strome-Kaapo Kakko-Alexis Lafreniere trio held the puck under the hash mark, but did not remit any foul.
Hey, you know what? Kreider has not drawn a penalty this season while taking six, including a delay in the first half. And Zibanejad drew exactly one while taking five, including an elbow in the second period that he challenged and for which he was in the box for Pavel Zacha’s power goal.
Again, however, these are individual trees through which the forest may not be visible. The only reason the Rangers were in the game in the second was because Shesterkin was enlightened in 2019-20 until the opening of the 20 minutes. OK, Artemi Panarin was eliminated for the second game in a row, but he doesn’t even come close to explaining the club’s illnesses.
“A lot of things happened tonight, you wonder why,” said Quinn, whose job is not to ask questions, but to provide solutions. “For me, we are in a situation where we did not earn much, you know. We need to understand the difference between winning and losing and why you have to do it. ”
Quinn is constantly being called on social media for her failure to raise children. And the malarkey ball. Kakko – perhaps the best club of this club, and this is not meant to be a faint praise – has made dramatic progress in the last two weeks. Adam Fox, Ryan Lindgren and K’Andre Miller speak for themselves. Pavel Buchnevich, modified by the coach before the game, responded. His game improved with jumps, playing for Quinn. Lafreniere? No, I don’t think the coach is responsible for coming out with a single goal and a point.
But a game like this … well, when the bus gets out of the way, everyone looks at the driver. The Rangers don’t want to look at the coach, but it might be easier said than done.