Dispirited Loss As They Enter A Grueling Nine Day Road Trip
Talk about ending the night on a thud.
The New York Rangers blew an opportunity to open the season strong, win their first three out of four, instead they split their first four games, and the first two home games, as they now will embark on a nine day road trip with five games on the docket in that time frame.
What is a little demoralizing is none of the four teams the Rangers have face thus far, are world beaters.
All four of them have missed the playoffs the previous season, and none have significantly moved the needle to contenders, fringe playoff hopefuls, maybe, but nothing significant.
There is a glimmer of hope however, this is a team that's trying to figure out how everything works.
It's a new system under Peter Laviolette, and learning a new system takes time.
Laviolette, after the game, made some remarks on the team performance:
I thought that our speed was off. I thought that our compete was off. We're talking about trying to play a faster game, a game that goes north fast, and I thought we just took that away from ourselves with puck decisions and things that we did to slow things down.
Even the captain, Jacob Trouba, was troubled by tonight's performance:
All around wasn't good enough to win a hockey game. That's not a game we felt we deserved to win at all. Definitely our worst game of the season so far to this point. Address it. We don't want a repeat of this thing. We all saw it. We know what it is.
This is their worse game of the season thus far, four games in, and the road won't get any easier.
They need to reorganize and asses the issues.
This team has a problem defensively.
Allowing all these breakaway chances and lack of defensive communication, not to mention a lack of discipline too, with each passing penalty seems to drain any momentum this team builds.
The Rangers' had a great opportunity to fly high and start the season strong. Now they will ponder the next couple of days prior to their next game, wondering how to make this team work.
The New York Rangers will now begin a five game stretch on the road, starting with the Seattle Kraken Saturday, October 21st, at Climate Pledge Arena, in Seattle.
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