New York Rangers: Takeaways from an insane night in Edmonton

1. Biggest flaws exposed again

We all know the story by now. The New York Rangers are talented and they will be for a long time, but they will also inflict a lot of short-term pain on us.

Given how young this roster is, mistakes are to be expected and, sometimes tolerated, but they were really on full display in ugly fashion on New Year’s Eve.

Straight from the faceoff circle, an area the Blueshirts have really struggled in all year, the Oilers landed the first blow of the night thanks to James Neal.

This team’s defensive deficiencies were put under the spotlight for six of Edmonton’s goals, and perhaps even for the empty-netter which put the final nail in the Rangers’ coffin.

It was ugly to watch at times and it could have been a whole lot worse were it not for this team’s character shining through (more on that later).

Alexandar Georgiev, who has rapidly established himself as one of the hottest young goalies in the NHL, was clearly infuriated by the play of his defense and the fact that he was left exposed time and time again, leading to him being pulled after the Oilers scored their sixth unanswered goal.

Just look at Edmonton’s fifth goal in particular, the way Connor McDavid made statues of the Rangers defensemen before feeding Neal to complete his hat trick, while the first goal was also equally as embarrassing.

The penalty kill, which has been so impressive as of late, was also exposed as the Oilers went 3-for-6 on the power play, and you simply can’t give McDavid and Leon Draisaitl that amount of time on the man advantage.

It was just an ugly night for the New York Rangers defense, and it all led to the Blueshirts losing a New Year’s Eve game for the first time in six tries.