Rangers fall flat against Senators after honoring Mike Zibanejad’s milestone

The Rangers hit the mark with their on-ice ceremony honoring Mika Zibanejad ahead of his 1,000th NHL game Monday night.

Access the Rangers beat like never before

Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mollie Walker about the inside buzz on the Rangers.

Advertisement

tRY IT NOW

Once the puck was dropped on the Madison Square Garden ice, however, the Blueshirts struggled to hit the mark on anything.

A 2-1 loss to the team that traded Zibanejad to New York on July 18, 2016, the Senators, was the result.

The Rangers’ measly nine shots on goal matched a franchise low that dates back over 70 years.

The Senators, already without two of their top four defensemen (Jake Sanderson and Nick Jensen), lost two blueliners to injury during the game and still had little difficulty containing the Rangers’ lowly offense.

“It’s not that we didn’t have a good night, we just got outcompeted,” said captain J.T. Miller, who was held to zero shots on goal in the Rangers’ 25th loss in 34 games at home. “That’s the part that’s hard to live with that stuff. Like I mentioned, looking inward at yourself, you’re just not doing enough. We don’t do enough. Today you should have a fire lit under your ass to go play for your teammate. A guy that feels like a cornerstone of the organization.

“We go out and have four [shots] through two [periods]. At home, a place where we haven’t been desperate enough this season. That doesn’t sit well.”

Advertisement

After a moving tribute video narrated by Zibanejad’s wife, Irma, fellow members of the leadership group showered the longest-tenured Ranger and his family with hugs and forms of appreciation from the organization.

Gifts included a trip to Greece for the whole family, a mini silver stick for his daughter, Ella, and a custom-engraved silver hockey stick for Zibanejad to commemorate the 1,000-game milestone.

The heartwarming ceremony bled into a stiff opening 20 minutes for the Rangers, who have soiled themselves in front of their home crowd on an egregious number of occasions this season.

The Senators got a power-play goal from Shane Pinto and hit two posts before the home team even put one puck on net.

It was Juuso Pärssinen, playing in his first game since March 12 in Winnipeg, who finally recorded the Rangers’ first shot on goal with 6:11 left in the first period.

Advertisement

The Rangers didn’t get another until they earned a power play later in the frame.

Pärssinen then flipped the puck over the glass — the first of two such bench minors committed by the Rangers — to ensure his team finished the first shorthanded.

The Rangers could only funnel two more pucks at Ottawa goalie James Reimer over the next 20 minutes, finishing with a mere nine on the night.

Four shots through two periods represented the fewest for a Rangers team since 1965-66, when the NHL started tracking shots per period. The last time the Rangers posted that few shots on goal in a game was on Dec. 11, 1955 against the Red Wings.

Advertisement

While Conor Sheary got the Rangers on the board just over seven minutes into the final frame, the equalizer never came.

“It’s disappointing because I feel like we’re not controlling what we can to set our team up for success,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “I just think we lacked anticipation, on both sides of the puck…We didn’t win pucks. So we ended up spending a lot of time in our end zone for the first period, for sure. I thought the second period, the first seven minutes of the second period, we had a good push. And then for the next, I think, seven of the next 13 minutes, we were in the penalty box… I don’t think we’re playing the game with enough pace.”