That’s why the Rangers are so teased. That’s why he could be seventh in the NHL in goals scored per game and 12th in goals against for every game, yet be 18th in the overall standings and away looking in the playoffs.
They just aren’t consistent enough. They are unable to put success in context. They are not able to adapt against an opponent who eliminates their skill game and forces them into a battle of tight spaces and hockey with numbers.
Two nights after the hilarity resulted in a victory over the injured Penguins, there was only pain after the 5-2 loss of the Rangers to the same (but very different) team from Pittsburgh, which was not going to allow the opponent to wheel.
Denying them bread and butter, the Rangers could not cope. Their top two lines did almost nothing. They couldn’t or didn’t want to bring the deep puck. They couldn’t work the walls. There was no puck possession under the hash marks. Usually, they were mean. The attention to detail was a result of imagination.
“They made it hard for us and we were maybe a little too stubborn with our puck and our decisions,” said Mika Zibanejad, whose game was far from equal, and not in a Masters way. “We tried to force the games a little too much and we didn’t really get a consistent early check or puck on the net.
“It simply came to our notice then. I’m a good team. We were a little too stubborn today. ”
Zibanejad missed what appeared to be a wide open left side of the net on a short two-to-one feed from Pavel Buchnevich at 8:29 in the game, which the Rangers followed 1-0 at the time. . His failure to eliminate led to Kris Letang’s goal at 3:23 of the second, which gave the Penguins 2-1 at just 1:21 after Colin Blackwell’s power play equalized.
Zibanejad later lost a clean penalty draw in the defensive zone against four-game veteran Radim Zohorna. This led directly to a power goal by Evan Rodrigues at 11:28 of the second to increase Pittsburgh’s 3-1 advantage. No, it wasn’t a good night for Zibanejad.
But he was barely alone. Neither Artemi Panarin nor Ryan Strome had much. And Chris Kreider had nothing. Again. Kreider has not scored a five-for-five goal in 13 games since March 13. He struggles all over the ice, unable to make an impact.
Kreider has been Ranger since 2012-13 and leads the team in goals during this time. But all this time, he was once selected to participate in the shootings. It was February 21, 2013 in Ottawa, when Kreider was the seventh and last player to shoot Ben Bishop. It was stopped, and the Blueshirts lost.
Since then, the Rangers have participated in 58 shots and used 17 shots, none of which was named Chris Kreider. On Thursday, the reasons were probably reinforced when Kreider, awarded with a penalty kick at 17:59, when he was brought down from behind by Cody Ceci and his team down 3-1, pulled the puck into Tristan Jarry’s buffers.
The Rangers’ inclination to avoid good fires to try to be worse has reached epidemic status. In the middle of the first period, Kaapo Kakko drove to the middle of the right, but instead of pulling out of the slot, he threw it back so that Flip Chytil had a worse angle. In the middle of the second, Chytil led to the slot and passed it to the right circle, but his flow did not connect.
“A lot of things were missing tonight,” coach David Quinn said. “Not shooting the puck has been a problem all year, a problem since I’ve been here.
“Sometimes when you win a game [8-4, as the Rangers did Tuesday], you can change your mindset a little and if you do this at this level, you will get what you deserve. ”
Again, when things get easy, Rangers can look like Oilers Dynastic. When things get tense, I can look like the Rangers from 1997-2004. This is not a particularly flattering comparison.
This was on the top guys and the team mentality. After picking up the opportunist Blackwell on Tuesday with Panarin and Strome, Quinn overturned him with Vitali Kravtsov after only four laps. Kravtsov was one of the best Rangers, but I found it strange to take his playing time away from a guy who is always willing to dig in a night when few were in the mood. If Kravtsov deserved more ice time, he probably should have come at the expense of Kreider.
The Bruins won in Washington to extend their seven-point lead over the Rangers for the playoff final spot while holding two games in hand. What did Quinn say in a different context?
Oh right. You get what you deserve.