The last-place New York Rangers hit a humiliating new low on Saturday, when the Boston Bruins demonized them with a 10-2 drubbing up in Beantown. Trudging back home in the Charlie Brown Christmas pose, the team that played the best regular season in all of the NHL just two seasons ago badly needed a boost in Monday night's contest against the Kraken. The Eastern Conference is still a big tin of sardines, after all, so it's only going to take a medium-sized hot streak for a bad team to change the story of its season. (See also: the Toronto Maple Leafs.)
The Rangers had a dream start to their night—one where they could take heart in the belief that fortune was finally smiling upon them. After the boys in blue killed a quick penalty, Artemi Panarin sent a gorgeous pass to Mika Zibanejad in space as the team entered the offensive zone. The 10-year Ranger center took a shot that hit off goalie Philipp Grubauer and deflected way wide, but that wasn't the end of the chance. The biscuit ricocheted off the end glass and fell right back to Zibanejad as his momentum carried him around the side of the net. Mika flipped the puck backward toward a Grubauer who had no idea where it was, and before the Kraken netminder could get wise to the scheme, he'd scored on himself with the back of his legs. This is the kind of goal you get when you're playing the computer on "rookie" mode, and for a wayward group it was nothing short of a blessing.
Better yet: They scored another easy goal less than three minutes later. A bad Seattle turnover in their own zone as they tried to flip the ice meant possession fell to Sam Carrick, who had plenty of time to pick his spot and send the puck sailing over Gru's pad for the early 2-0 lead. It's looking pretty good for the Rangers, right?
Wrong. After those two fluke-ish goals, the offense didn't make any more noise for the rest of the night. Seattle, meanwhile, stayed persistent until they got three past Jonathan Quick—two early in the second and then one midway through the third—and finally the cincher on an empty-net. The Kraken are a weird team. They're lacking any of the upper-tier talent that you can get when you don't have to build through the expansion draft. (Jordan Eberle scoring a real shooter's goal in this game was almost a shock given this squad's identity; he's their leading scorer by a decent margin, but league-wide he ranks in a 15-way tie for 47th.) Even with a negative goal differential, however, they've scrounged together enough points with lucky bounces and fine goaltending to sit in a playoff spot out West. If you're facing them, you look at the roster and expect to go out and rip them to shreds. Would that it were so simple.
Rangers fans will have to settle for ripping their own team to shreds. I was at the Garden on Monday, surrounded by a lot of cantankerous, kind of whiny older guys, and also Barry Petchesky. (An aside: I know this has always been a thing, but anecdotally I think there's been an uptick in dudes at arenas freaking the hell out when a team holds the puck in the zone for a few seconds without taking a shot, which I blame on shots-on-goal prop bets.) The most exciting thing to happen after the game's first five minutes was when Seattle took the lead and the crowd struck up a "Fire Drury" chant, referring to general manager Chris Drury. Maybe you don't want to judge a team too harshly when they're missing their top defenseman (Adam Fox) and their cornerstone goalie (Igor Shesterkin) to injury. Nevertheless, the angry mob might be on to something. New York looks a shadow of the conference finalists they were a couple years back, when the top lines were lousy with attacking talent. Now, those top lines are older and thinner and don't have much coming down the pipeline, either. The team's poor drafting dates back before Drury's tenure, but the farm system has only gotten more barren. The forwards are heavily reliant on veteran leaders who won't be able to lead for much longer. The defensive unit is anonymous. Without Shesterkin to back them up, everyone is seeing just how bad it can get.
Even the Eastern Conference's sorriest teams can psyche themselves up for a playoff push if they just look at the standings a little crooked. Or at least, maybe they could if the Rangers had held on to that 2-0 lead. Absent a badly needed pair of points, the climb suddenly looks pretty darn steep. With the NHL off for practically all of February, and the trade deadline coming in early March, this is a tempting moment to clean house in the front office and try something new. You ideally never want to outsource your thinking to Sal from Staten Island. But maybe this time he's got a point.
