The New York Rangers started their longest road trip of the season with an embarrassingly bad performance in Las Vegas. After one period when they played toe-to-toe with the Golden Knights, Vegas took over the game and simply dominated. This was the third time the Rangers have lost by a 5-1 score, but was not their worst defeat of the season. That was the 6-0 loss to Calgary.
There was some breaking news just before game time when it was announced that Igor Shesterkin had entered the COVID protocol. That meant a late change to Alexandar Georgiev who was in net for the Rangers shootout loss to Vegas before Christmas. Georgiev held them in the game early, but gave up some iffy goals late that contributed to the dismantling of the Rangers.
If Gerard Gallant wants the Rangers to play in the same style as Vegas, they could do much worse. The Golden Knights are quick on the transition and it’s often all five players who join the rush. They are expert at hitting the trailing player for a shot and they are relentless on the forecheck.
One advantage for Vegas is their ability to roll four lines and all four lines play the same way. Considering the Rangers roster, it was no small mystery that they were overwhelmed.
A disappointed Gerard Gallant laid out the issues. “We made a lot of mistakes tonight. The first 25 minutes we played a perfect game plan to come in and try to beat this hockey team. After that it fell apart. We started turning pucks over at the blue line, we started defending in our D-zone instead of playing…we just looked like we lost our legs for some reason.”
Jacob Trouba spoke after the game and kept reinforcing the message that it was a bad game and they have to just move on. “I think puck management, that’s what usually leads to odd man rushes…jump into play at the right time, make the right decisions with the puck. We just got away from what we’ve been doing well over the last couple weeks. We’ll identify it and move on.”
What was most demoralizing about this game was the lack of spirit showed by the team in the third period. Vegas has to get some of the credit for totally stifling the Rangers, but there wasn’t a lot of push back from the Blueshirts.