Three Reasons the New York Rangers Lost in Round 1

The season has come to an end in Manhatten. There is now a summer of soul-searching and scouting to do to prepare for the 2023-24 season. There are contract negotiations to be had between some of the players that need new deals and the Rangers front office. That can be done later. For now, there have to be some reviews as to what went wrong for the New York Rangers in their series against the New Jersey Devils.

This does not have to be a look at what needed to happen for the Rangers to win in their series against the New Jersey Devils. It has to be a look at what the Rangers failed to do. Whether that is because of the suppression from New Jersey the Rangers just failed to execute due to a system clash or the players in blue and white were just unable to do what they were doing to find such success at the beginning of the season.

Seven games is more of a sample size than some others will get, but it’s still not enough. As Ranger fans, we want to see the Blueshirts end the regular season and then win 16 more times. In addition to those 16 games, they will lose. No team has ever swept the 4 round format perfectly. It’s way too difficult to do. Case and point, the best regular-season team ever is sitting on a golf course somewhere right now after losing in 7 in the first round.

Anyway, getting back to the Rangers. What went wrong? What caused the Rangers team that was coming into this postseason red hot to go from a 2-0 series lead absolutely smashing the Devils into the ice heading home to getting shut out twice in the series and going home at the end of round one?