Rangers fall to Hurricanes at MSG for 12th loss in last 16 games

The good news for the Rangers is that there are two months and 13 days until the NHL’s trade deadline, and they have 26 games to play in order to change general manager Chris Drury’s mind about his team.

The bad news for the Rangers is there are two months and 13 days until the NHL’s trade deadline, and they have 26 games to play in that period.

Opposite sides of the same coin.

Whatever slim chances exist that Drury decides to keep the 2024-25 iteration of this team intact took a hit with the Rangers’ 3-1 loss to the Hurricanes on Sunday afternoon at the Garden.

The Rangers (16-16-1) have lost three of four, 12 of 16, and dating to Oct. 24, 15 of 26.

For a group that — outside of Barclay Goodrow, Jacob Trouba and most recently, Kaapo Kakko — is ostensibly the same as the one which won the Presidents’ Trophy and advanced to Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals, their 33 points have them in sixth place in the eight-team Metropolitan Division and 11th in the Eastern Conference.

The Rangers will meet the Devils on Monday afternoon at the Prudential Center for their last game before the holiday break. Following the pause, they will end the calendar year with road matchups against the Lightning (Dec. 28) and Panthers (Dec. 30).

“Every game at this point is important,” defenseman Braden Schneider said. “Especially these division ones. These are the ones you have to make sure you’re ready for, so we have to move on from tonight . . . We have to make sure we’re ready to go like we were tonight and continuing that for 60 minutes.”

That pretty well sums up an afternoon that began with cheers from the 18,006 at the rink on 33rd Street and ended with boos.

The positive, for a team whose starts have been problematic over the course of the season, was Jimmy Vesey’s opening goal 17 seconds in.

Vesey, who was in the lineup due to Matt Rempe’s in-person meeting with the NHL’s department of player safety for his hit on Dallas defenseman Miro Heiskanen on Friday night, redirected Chad Ruhwedel’s centering pass between Hurricanes goalie Pyotr Kochetkov’s pads for a 1-0 lead.

Nineteen minutes and 43 seconds later, the Rangers went into the first intermission still holding their 1-0 lead.

They did so predominantly because Igor Shesterkin stopped all six shots he faced — including goalmouth saves on Jackson Blake and William Carrier — while his teammates were unable to generate a shot on goal for nearly 12 minutes.

Still, the Rangers had an advantage, which is something they could not say at the end of the second period. The Hurricanes went into second intermission with a 2-1 lead on the strength of goals off the sticks of Carrier (9:14) and ex-Ranger Jack Roslovic (14:32).

Chris Kreider could have given the Rangers a 2-0 lead with a shorthanded goal midway through the second period but Kochetkov made a skate save. Instead, 46 seconds later, the score was tied when Carrier poked the rebound of Jaccob Slavin’s shot from the point past a sprawled Shesterkin.

Nearly five minutes later, Roslovic tapped in Dmitry Orlov’s diagonal, cross-ice pass for his 14th goal of the season with two seconds left on Alexis Lafreniere’s four-minute minor for high-sticking.

Shesterkin made 14 of his 28 saves in the second, none bigger than his spectacular glove save on Sebastian Aho with 50 seconds left in the period that kept the Rangers in it.

“They were better than us in the second period,” coach Peter Laviolette said. “We lost the second period, 2-0.”

Before the game, Laviolette defended the power-play units, saying despite going 0-for-8 in the previous four games, the lack of success was not due to a lack of shots. Against the Hurricanes, the Rangers were 0-for-4 with four shots.

“Execution,” Laviolette said, when asked if the man advantage’s lack of tangible results was a mental problem or one of performance. “I don’t think we executed well enough.”

Aho’s empty-netter with 1:42 remaining in the contest ended the scoring. Kochetkov, who was also credited with two secondary assists on Carolina’s final two goals, finished with 22 saves.

Notes & quotes: Zac Jones and Jonny Brodzinski were scratched while K’Andre Miller is still day to day with an upper-body injury.