New York Rangers: No points can be taken for granted

In a back-to-back game weekend heading into the New York Rangers’ bye week, one night featured a sluggish start with two points while the other an aggressive start with none. If the Rangers want to stay in the playoffs, they must not take any nights off no matter who it is they’re playing from here forward.

The New York Rangers head into their bye week currently sitting with 49 points in the first wild card spot in the tight Metropolitan division.

They sit two points ahead of the Pittsburgh Penguins and three points ahead of the rest of the division. In fact, the entire division is within only 11 points of each other.

The Rangers currently have 40 games left in the season with a possible 80 points to obtain, each one being extremely critical.

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Heading into the bye week, the Rangers had a two game road trip out west to face the Arizona Coyotes and the Vegas Golden Knights, two teams on completely opposite sides of the spectrum.

The Coyotes residing at rock bottom of the NHL while the Golden Knights sitting at the very top.

The Rangers kicked off their back-to-back nights of contests on Saturday with the struggling Coyotes in which one would think would be an easy two points in the bag.

On paper, you would think that a young, rebuilding and inexperienced team like the Coyotes would be a cake walk for a competitive seasoned team like the Rangers.

This is an ignorant assumption. When the Rangers faced off against the Arizona, I think that it was evident that they were going to have their hands full the whole night.

The Rangers truly had to vie for the two points in a 2-1 shootout win against a team that had less talent but more effort than the Rangers.

It is always a relief to get the two points, but the Rangers start to this game is a serious red flag for things to come unless they learned their lesson here.

The first period was as Rangers forward Jesper Fast described as “embarrassing” for the Rangers. The Coyotes were relentless and capitalized on the Rangers laissez-faire attitude.

They were missing passes, being beaten to loose pucks, struggling to generate anything in the offensive zone and giving away easy scoring opportunities. It was clear there was no energy in the team for this game.

If it weren’t for Rangers goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, this game could have been over in the first period as we saw him make a couple of the most sensational saves this season.

Overall, the Arizona Coyotes, a team heading into the night 22 points below the Rangers, outshot them 39-25.

Lundqvist once again was able to bail the Rangers out of regulation and then the shootout, stopping all three Coyote attempts, including former Ranger Derek Stepan to clinch the win.

Mika Zibanejad buried a bar-down shot over former Ranger goaltender Antti Raanta’s left shoulder which proved to be the shootout winner.

It was interesting to see Lundqvist and Raanta go head-to-head for the first time since Raanta’s departure. I think that Raanta’s performance was no surprise as he wasn’t going to give up anything easy to his former team.

One player that had a standout effort was Jimmy Vesey. The lone regulation goal scorer for the Rangers showed a lot of edge to his game and was out working the opposition on all areas of the ice to give himself scoring opportunities. It is reassuring to see Vesey’s game start to develop.

One night later, the Rangers knew they were going to have to be better against a red-hot Vegas team that sports an astounding 18-2-1 home record this season proving to be a top team in the NHL this year.

Head Coach Alain Vigneault mixed up the lines and pairings while making Pavel Buchnevich and Brendan Smith healthy scratches and giving Vinni Lettieri and Steve Kampfer a shot to energize the bench. He also gave the nod to Ondrej Pavelec to start in net while giving Lundqvist a deserved night off.

All of these moves proved to be the right ones when the puck dropped as the Rangers showed pep in their step drawing scoring opportunities on Vegas right away.

Vegas was on its toes from the get-go and Zibanejad tallied first with a screened shot over Vegas goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury’s left shoulder. Vegas forward James Neal responded later in the period to tie it at one and from there it was a stale mate.

Vegas seemed to adjust and for the entire game it just seemed like nothing was going to give. With two speed-driven teams with solid goaltending, it seemed like no one would break the tie.

The Rangers blinked first as they let up a prime opportunity to Golden Knight’s leading scorer William Karlsson who scored the game winner late in the third on a point-blank one-timer.

Pavelec once again came through with another stellar performance in one of his sporadic opportunities as he made 32 saves.

However, the hard-fought 60 minutes resulted in a 2-1 loss and no reward. Not exactly the fashion the Rangers wanted to close the first half of the season with.

The most unsettling part of the game wasn’t the loss of the two points either. It was the injury to forward Kevin Hayes who left in the first after taking an awkward hit behind the net.

It’s uncertain when Hayes will return, but it is possible he will be good to go when the Rangers play next on Saturday against the New York Islanders.

It has been tough playing without forward Chris Kreider as is, but this is hockey and injuries are expected. Others must step up and play to their potential as well as their contracts and injuries will only make the team stronger.

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The NHL is just too competitive right now for any team to be playing inconsistent, especially those in the Metropolitan division. The Rangers must reflect and recuperate during this week off and return with the potential they are capable of.

The Metropolitan division is a game of musical chairs this season. Each night a different team in the playoffs and another one out. If the Blueshirts plan to occupy a seat in April, they must attack every game headstrong from here forward.

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