Three takeaways from the Rangers' 2-2 road trip that started out well but ended badly
The Rangers' Adam Fox and the Edmonton Oilers' Connor McDavid battle for the puck during second-period NHL action in Edmonton on Saturday. Credit: AP/Jason Franson
The Rangers went 2-2 on their four-game road trip to the Pacific Northwest and Alberta, and maybe when they first looked at the schedule when it was released over the summer, they’d have been willing to settle for that.
But the way the trip played out – with two nice wins to start, followed by two awful losses to close it out, it left them in a bad place as they enter a busy Thanksgiving Week.
Here are three takeaways from the Rangers trip to Seattle and Western Canada.
1. Slow starts prove costly
You can’t just not show up in the first period. In the two losses, to Calgary and Edmonton, the Rangers were outshot 20-5 and 21-9 in the first periods. They ended up trailing at the first intermission in both games, and while they caught up against Calgary and tied the game before allowing the game-winner in the third period, they never got close against Edmonton.
“I think we're just coming out slow, playing on our heels, and it seems like it takes us being down a few goals to be pressing, be on the offense, be in their zone, and kind of take the game to them a little bit more,’’ defenseman Adam Fox said. “We keep reiterating those starts are just not going to cut it, especially as a team like (Edmonton).’’
2. Problems need fixing soon
The things that are going wrong right now – an inability to get the puck out of the defensive zone cleanly; an inability to hold possession in the offensive zone; a propensity for neutral zone or offensive zone turnovers that turn into rush chances by the opponent – are not going to correct themselves.
The Rangers are going to have to find a way to play better and be more proactive in doing something – work harder to get open for teammates, make better tape-to-tape passes and stop turning the puck over – to fix these problems, as opposed to just assuming their talent is good and their issues will eventually go away on their own.
“I think, yeah, you're spot on,’’ Vincent Trocheck said.
3. Power play hurting them, too
They’ve been able to make up for their inadequacies in five-on-five play because their power play has been one of the very best in the league over the past five-plus seasons. But right now, the man up unit is hurting more than it is helping. They haven’t scored a power-play goal in five games. Against Edmonton they were 0-for-3 and allowed a shorthanded goal.
“It was really bad,’’ Fox said. “Just flat out, you know, was not good today.’’
“They're not dropping right now,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said. “There's some movement, there's some looks. We're walking in, but it's not falling for us… There's no question it can be better.’’
Laviolette repositioned some of the pieces around on the first unit, moving Fox from the point down to the bumper spot, in the slot area, shifting Trocheck out to the left half-boards, and rotating Mika Zibanejad up to Fox’s usual spot at the point. It didn’t work. Laviolette was asked if the next step might be to change up the personnel, like maybe give Alexis Lafreniere a look with the first unit.
“Those are things that we talk about,’’ Laviolette said.
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.
