The New York Rangers woke up on Tuesday morning ten points behind the final wild card team. There’s one reason they are so far out, their inability to keep games close.
With every game a virtual must win, the 5-3 loss to Dallas was devastating. With 54 points on the season, they are ten points out of the playoffs on February 4, almost too steep a hill to climb. If the threshold for making the playoffs is 95 points (the last two years it was 98), with 31 games to go, the New York Rangers have to go 20-10-1 the rest of the way. Impossible? No. Unlikely? Absolutely.
There is one glaring reason that the Blueshirts aren’t closer to a playoff position and that is their inability to get to overtime. It doesn’t even matter if they win in extra time, it’s just a matter of getting there. So far this season the Rangers have gone to OT only seven times. The only team with fewer overtime games is Detroit with six.
Here’s how they have lost their games this season:
Six one-goal losses
Four two-goals losses
Nine three-goal losses
Two four-goal losses
One six-goal loss
That 12 of 22 losses by three goals or more. But it’s also ten losses within a two goal margin.
If the Rangers had been able to get those six one-goal losses to extra time, even if they lost, they would have 60 points this morning instead of 54. They would be four points out of the wild card and talk of the playoffs wouldn’t be so far fetched.
Other teams do it
There’s a reason that Columbus is in third place in the Metropolitan Division. They have gone to overtime in 15 games and although they have lost nine of those games that still meant nine points gained over a regulation loss. If they had lost five of those games in regulation, they would be only six points better than the Blueshirts. Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and the Islanders have all gone to overtime in 16 games. Washington has gone to overtime 14 times. It all means points in the standings that the Rangers didn’t earn.
As an exercise, let’s take away four overtime points from each of the teams ahead of the Rangers and give the Blueshirts four additional points. Here’s what the Metropolitan Division standings would look like with their actual point total in parentheses:
- Washington 71 (75)
- Pittsburgh 67 (71)
- Columbus 61 (65)
- Philadelphia 61 (65)
- Islanders 60 (64)
- Carolina 59 (63)
- Rangers 58 (54)
While this may seem like an unrealistic projection, reducing the number of OT games for those teams and adding four for the Rangers would give every team in the Met Division between eight and 12 overtime games, a reasonable total.
Lost opportunities
Optimists point to the team’s remarkable comeback win against the Canadiens or their near comeback on New Year’s Eve in Edmonton, but when they had other opportunities to come back from a one goal deficit they have failed three times. They had 11:38 to tie against Calgary on January 3, 14:29 to tie against Vancouver on October 20 and 22:16 against Florida on November 16 and couldn’t come up with the equalizer.
Even more devastating were the three losses the Rangers took when they allowed goals in the last minute and a half of a game. Those memories are tough. On January 19, Columbus scored with 27 seconds left. On January 4, Vancouver scored the winner with 1:29 left and on December 6, Montreal won with only 1:07 left. Those are three points the Rangers just gave away.
So, if the Rangers had been able to force overtime in those six games, even if they had eventually lost them all, they would have 60 points. If they had been able to win three of those games they would have 63 points and would be one point out of the wildcard. Getting to overtime is a crapshoot and the Blueshirts have won half the time they have gotten to OT or a shootout. .
One reason that their arch-rival Islanders are barely in the playoff hunt is that four times this season they have scored in the last two and a half minutes to force overtime. They went on to win three of those games and come away with seven points they were on the verge of losing. They lose those four games and they have 57 points, are out of the playoffs and would be only three points better than the Rangers.
David Quinn talks a lot about resiliency and the need to battle. At this stage, they don’t need to battle for wins, they just need to battle to get into overtime. It’s something this young team needs to work on and the coaching staff needs to drill into them. We’ll be watching.