Poor Rangers performance sees the Devils tie the Series in Game 4

That was far and away the worst game of the series for the Rangers. That third period was completely unacceptable for the Blueshirts. In a period they started losing, they scored to tie the game at one. After that goal to tie the game, the Rangers had two (2) whole shots on goal. 2. There were more than 18 minutes left after the Trocheck marker. That is just not good enough.

I mentioned Trocheck’s marker at the beginning of the third period, it was his first playoff goal as a member of the New York Rangers and the lone tally for the Rangers tonight. There have to be chances moving forward. Something has to wake up this team that scored 2 goals on home ice after beating the snot out of the Devils at the Prudential Center. They have allowed the Devils to take this back to Newark tied at 2.

Igor Shesterkin was not the reason this game was so far out of reach for the New York Rangers, but he find himself on the receiving end of a major collision with New Jersey Devils captain Nico Hischier. Both the player and the netminder were unharmed, but look for the Rangers to take exception with the Devils captain specifically moving forward after such violent conduct with the Rangers’ premier shot-stopper.

Game Five will be Wednesday night in the Prudential Center. New Jersey’s home record has not been good this season and the Rangers need to collect themselves before they ship out to Newark. They cannot play as they did in that third period against the Devils in New Jersey, even if the Devils struggle at home. They will be dumped out of this first-round series in six games if they do not figure it out.

Scoring two goals on home ice in this series is just not good enough. They will come back to Madison Square Garden for game six because we know there has to be a game six due to tonight’s loss. If the Rangers cannot figure out a way to solve Akira Schmid, I’m not sure there’s anything that Igor Shesterkin and the coaching staff can do. This team with all this explosive talent needs goals.

If you take out Chris Kreider, the Rangers’ top six has 4 goals. In four games, that is one way to quickly get to the golf courses. Vladimir Tarasenko has two. So those two have 7 goals and the rest of the Rangers’ top 6 have 2. One of those was in this awful game. Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin need to figure it out and get involved in this series before it is too late. The Rangers need their stars and those two have been silent.