The Rangers have two much-needed days off, Sunday and Monday, followed by two desperately needed days of practice on Tuesday and Wednesday.
After that, they may finally be ready to be evaluated fairly once they take the ice Thursday night against the Canadiens with a full lineup for the primary time since essentially the Feb. 25 loss in Washington. The surface noise from the trade deadline has come and gone. Patrick Kane technically has been on the books for six days. The Rangers can officially get back to their frequently scheduled program.
4 games of skating shorthanded — or benching players for roster-management reasons — haven’t been kind to the Rangers, who went 1-2-1 against the Kings, Flyers, Senators and Bruins. The actual fact is, nonetheless, the Rangers are simply underperforming recently.
They’ve lost six of their last eight games, and slipped to simply a seven-point cushion on the wild-card Islanders within the Metropolitan Division standings. It hasn’t all been negative. The club is nowhere near any doom or gloom. There remains to be a confidence exuding from the locker room that’s indicating team perseverance.
The Rangers just must tighten up defensively, integrate the brand new faces into their five-on-five game and power play and begin working toward unlocking the lineup’s full potential to make sure they achieve optimal seeding within the playoffs. Their recent play hasn’t necessarily been bad, especially considering the circumstances, nevertheless it’s not great, either.
“I suppose that’s the high-quality balance that you’ve got to search out,” Mika Zibanejad said of taking positives away from the 4-2 loss to the NHL-leading Bruins Saturday afternoon in Boston. “Whenever you look back at games and what you do with them and the way you go forward and whatnot. I feel we do quite a lot of good things. The opposite games that we played against [Boston], the opposite two games, I don’t think we got here up this good against them and sort of pushed them back.
“We didn’t just sit back and watch them play and [that’s not] easy to do, especially here [in Boston]. They’re good at home. Obviously, I feel like they’ve been good in every single place this yr, but especially at home. They’ve a ton of speed, they play very fast and so they’re dangerous. But I believed we at times did a very good job pushing back and never just sitting back and waiting for things to occur.
“We did quite a lot of good things and hopefully that’s something that we are able to construct on and add to. Irrespective of who we play, to play that game, I feel like that’s how we wish to play and what we’ve talked about all yr. Not completely satisfied with the result, attempt to take a number of the good things that we did, obviously recuperate on the things that we’ve got to.”
No team is resistant to distractions, and there have been plenty across the Rangers for nearly a month now. It’s also created even loftier expectations than the organization was already facing initially of the season. That would end in an extended adjustment period than the Rangers likely desire, nevertheless it also could lead on to a drop-off within the standings.
The schedule is nearing crunch time and the Rangers must adapt accordingly with 19 games left within the regular season.
K’Andre Miller will likely be back Thursday from his three-game suspension and Ryan Lindgren could possibly be nearing a return from his upper-body injury. The Rangers have little doubt missed two of their top defensemen. It’s unclear what Tyler Motte’s timeline is with an apparent head injury, however the Rangers will find a way to recall a forward to play at full strength going forward.
All pieces will likely be in place soon enough. The Rangers may have to take it from there.
