This was a performance that didn’t even deserve a 24-hour wait, let alone the 313 days between appearances at the Garden of the Rangers.
But then, this would not have been considered even an appearance of the Blueshirts – who did not present any presentation in the opening of the season, losing 4-0 to a team from the Islanders, who had a 60-minute walk through the park on Thursday .
If you are looking for an excuse for this disaster – in which Igor Shesterkin allowed the goals in the third, fifth and seventh shots he faced while his teammates were not bothered.
There is no excuse for Rangers, exempting themselves from the bullshit of being booed from the building just because customers are not allowed in the garden. This was an amateur performance by a team that was not ready to compete against the conference finalists.
Check this. The rangers weren’t ready to compete, period. If you don’t believe me, you’d probably prefer to hear it from David Quinn – who, thinking about it, has a lot more responsibility for it than I do.
“We thought we were back to doing some of the things we were doing in the balloon,” the coach said, even releasing the indictment. “Cheating the game … there are zero shortcuts in this game, zero shortcuts. We play hockey hopefully.
“We were just not ready to play the right way. I allowed them to get in position all night because I wasn’t skating. We did not play with the right intentions. It wasn’t much good tonight, that’s for sure. ”
It is almost impossible to assess the structure or system of the Rangers or the desire to play simple hockey, in a straight line, from this fiasco – by which one player after another committed the most fundamental blunders.
Unsuccessful cross-country ice passes, negligent turnovers, failure to compete for free pucks, inability or unwillingness to win individually, and lack of discipline were routine in what became the first closing defeat of the opening night from the awful 1998-99 team a 1-0 match at the Flyers
Shesterkin staggered in the first period, probably not to blame for any of the three who beat him within 10:58, but failed to make a big save after Brock Nelson scored from the power play slot at 2:33. A one-on-one double followed 1:19 later, in which Anders Lee hit one from the left on a piece that started behind the Islanders net. And then the splendid Mat Barzal defeated the goalkeeper on the right, slipping his way through an escort.
An empty building meant that Shesterkin, the apple of everyone’s eyes during his debut last season, did not have to suffer what would have been the inevitable songs of “Henrik … Henrik”. But the 25-year-old Russian showed his spine in the last 40 minutes and asserted himself with a handful of wonderful stops. That was one of the few positives of the night, although we should assume that Alex Georgiev will head for Saturday’s rematch on Broadway.
K’Andre Miller had a very nervous period in his first professional competition, apart from an intrasquad fight. Alexis Lafreniere was not as exposed as his rookie teammate and played at an encouraging pace, even getting a few changes with Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin when Quinn mixed his line combinations and started moving Kaapo Kakko. .
But make no mistake about believing that youth and inexperience were the main factors in the fiasco in which Semyon Varlamov was so rarely tested that there was no reason to even quote the name of the island’s porter until late in the year. report.
Panarin and Strome were completely ineffective, except for a few power games in which the first unit controlled the puck and locked it around the offensive zone for a good minute or more, although it couldn’t actually create a golden opportunity. Chris Kreider wasn’t much of a factor. Jacob Trouba, caught by the blue line in that odd men’s race in the first period, which Lee scored 2-0, seemed between them. Adam Fox had a hard night.
So did Tony DeAngelo, who aggravated his problems by applying an unsportsmanlike conduct penalty in addition to a crime. Brendan Lemieux played only one change in the first period and was entered for big tests in the second, after being responsible for a crime of too many men. The rangers were abbreviated eight times.
Mika Zibanejad could have been the best Blueshirts. Pavel Buchnevich worked hard. Filip Chytil had a few moments. Okay, let’s start here to find a piece of positivity in a forest of frustration and failure for 60 minutes.
It was only one night, of course. But it is also the only night Rangers 2020-21 can be measured. Blueshirts waited more than 10 months to return to the Garden. He shouldn’t have bothered.