It just keeps getting worse and worse for the New York Rangers.
The Rangers were defeated 3-2 by the St. Louis Blues on Sunday night, marking their tenth loss in the past 13 games.
To start the contest, the Rangers showed more physicality and urgency, something we haven’t seen from this team very often lately..
However, a defensive breakdown late in the first period led to a Pavel Buchnevich goal and that’s when the Rangers began to crumble.
New York gave up multiple odd-man rushes in the second period and looked completely out of sorts offensively.
After 40 minutes of play, the Rangers trailed 3-0.
Following each goal by St. Louis, the Rangers’ confidence went tumbling down. Between their body language and lack of intensity, the Rangers were playing like a demoralized team.
In the third period, Brett Berard and Will Cuylle helped spark some momentum with goals of their own, but it was too little too late.
Even though the team displayed a valiant effort late in the game, players don’t care about the moral victories at this point.
“It’s been a lot of the same messaging, same words, but at some point it has to be wins,” Adam Fox said. “You come back and score two and you can come back and say good effort, but at some point it has to be wins and it has to be two points and it doesn’t matter how, we are just not doing that right now.”
The Rangers’ poor play on the ice correlates with the fragile mental state of the team. All of their struggles on top of the outside noise have spiraled the Blueshirts out of control.
“There is probably some of that that factors into that,” Peter Laviolette said about how much of the team’s issues are mental.
Laviolette completely changed the lineup while also making Kaapo Kakko a healthy scratch, and none of it worked.
No matter what is being said in the locker room or the overall message being echoed by the team, the Rangers continue to stubble down the Eastern Conference standings and their season is starting to take a turn for the worse.
The Rangers will be back in action on Tuesday night against the Nashville Predators, in dire need of a victory.
Read the full article here
