Rangers Go Splat In Loss To Devils

Splat. That’s one of the words that best describes what happened at the Rock yesterday. The New York Rangers came in riding high and left with their tails between their legs after a 7-1 blowout loss to the Devils. New York gets a chance to right the ship Saturday in Columbus.

Game recap:

Rangers lines vs. Devils:

Perreault-Zibanejad-Dorofeyev
Kartye-Miller-Lafrenière
Cuylle-Laba-Tolvanen
Bjorkstrand-Dowling-Chmelař

Gavrikov-Fox
Pettersson-Durzi
Šmits-Schneider

Garand
Martin

Scratches: Morrow, Rempe
IR: Sýkora (lower-body), Korpisalo (lower-body)
LTIR: Shesterkin (lower-body), Veleno (lower-body)

A few thoughts

1) Advanced Metrics: I know you all don’t love advanced metrics. But the numbers tell all. Those that watched the game don’t need the below to tell them what they saw. But if you did not see it live or on replay, the Devils generated far too many high danger chances, reminiscent of how the Rangers played last season. Coming into the game, New York was being lauded for its defensive play and structure. Yesterday, that all fell apart, as New Jersey came through the neutral zone without being slowed. The word used post-game was “disconnected,” which was fairly clear when watching the team in their own zone.

2) Dylan Garand: if you think Garand was the biggest issue in this game, my response is heck no. While he did not play well, he was far from the main problem. The team around him did little to support Garand, leaving him high and dry for most of the contest. Wipe the slate clean, start fresh against the Blue Jackets. 

The inking of James Reimer to a Hartford PTO is solely to provide depth. It’s not a statement about Garand’s play or a lack of belief in his ability to do the job. Reimer gives Hratford another veteran netminder with Joonas Koprisalo sidelined and is a potential low cost/moderate reward move if he can regain his form and help be a sounding board for Garand. 

3) Prior year carryover: One bad game should not be enough to send the fans into a panic or tizzy. However, the carryover of the poor play from the prior two years has created an open wound; any setback or reversion to that style of play raises the temperature among the Rangers’ faithful. It’s somewhat of a Pavlovian response but also a protective mechanism. While we all want to believe that what we saw prior to yesterday was real, that little nagging doubt in the back of our brains comes right to the front whenever anything bad happens. This is why rebounding with the right style of play Saturday is so important. That would help show the loss to the Devils was the aberration and what we have seen the rest of the season is what’s true, rather than vice versa.  

4) Jaroslav Chmelař was optioned down Friday, replaced by Taylor Raddysh. Chmelař, like Cole Beaudoin who was sent down Wednesday, needs consistent playing. Receiving minimal minutes on the fourth line does little for his development. Raddysh is better suited to minimal playing time and fourth line deployment. Can we get Sam Carrick – a healthy scratch in four of eight games – back from Buffalo?