Rangers' slide continues with loss to last-place Chicago
Igor Shesterkin of the Rangers surrenders a second-period goal against Taylor Hall of the Chicago at Madison Square Garden on Monday. Credit: Jim McIsaac
If the stunning trade of their captain on Friday, the signing of their franchise goaltender on Saturday and a game against the worst team in the NHL on Monday can’t spur the Rangers to pull themselves out of the six-week-long funk they have been in, then what will it take?
Or perhaps the question should be: Can they pull out of it at all?
Coming off an ugly loss to the Seattle Kraken on Sunday afternoon, the Rangers desperately needed to roll to an easy win Monday night at the Garden against Chicago and end their five-game homestand on a positive note.
Instead, their problems were compounded by a lackluster, turnover-filled 2-1 loss to the visitors (9-17-2), who came into the Garden on a five-game losing streak and had fired coach Luke Richardson on Thursday.
Goals by Tyler Bertuzzi and Taylor Hall spoiled the return of Igor Shesterkin, who had missed Sunday’s game because his wife was delivering the couple’s second child, and sent the Rangers to a 2-3 homestand and their eighth loss in the last 10 games.
“I don’t know what to say anymore,’’ Artemi Panarin said. “But we had tons of chances again which we should score, but we don’t. Chances do not win the games; we know that. We have to score.’’
Panarin led the Rangers (14-12-1) with seven shots on goal but didn’t have one in the third period, when the Rangers had only seven shots and created little as they tried to make a comeback.
According to Natural Stat Trick, the Rangers had six high-danger chances in the first period to none for Chicago. But the high-danger chances were 8-1 in favor of Chicago in the second period and 4-1 Chicago in the third.
“I thought the first period, guys came out with the right intentions. I thought the execution was off in the first. We didn’t move the puck cleanly,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said. “And then the second, third period, we got slower and the puck movement got worse.’’
Asked if that reflected a weak effort, Laviolette said, “The effort dipped from where it was in the first and the execution got worse.’’
At one point midway through the third period, as the Rangers struggled to advance the puck out of their own defensive zone, the Garden crowd booed. There were more boos at the final horn.
“It’s frustrating, so I get it,’’ Laviolette said. “Deservedly so.’’
Shesterkin (9-10-1) made 30 saves, the most notable being a pad stop on a clean breakaway try by Ryan Donato with 4:40 remaining.
The Rangers had some early shots on goal and chances in the first period but fell behind 1-0 on Bertuzzi’s goal at 8:10 after an awful giveaway by Mika Zibanejad.
They tied it at 1-1 on a shorthanded goal by Will Cuylle with 42.9 seconds left in the period, but Hall’s somewhat lucky two-on-one goal — he lost control of the puck when Shesterkin slid out to try and poke-check it off him, and Shesterkin’s stick actually knocked the puck in — put Chicago back on top at 6:16 of the second.
Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.
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