These Ranger games are a whole lot of Groundhog Day. After yet another humilating loss on home ice, the Rangers are a rudderless ship, the leadership is extremely soft, and the players are playing like they want their coach to get fired. Which if that unlikely event occurs, this core getting a 4th coach would be an embarrassment beyond comprehension. This is not on coaching that the Rangers have gone from a President’s Trophy winning, franchise wins-setting buzz saw, to this hunk of junk.
The players have taken the business aspect of sport too personally, and are allowing it to seep into their on-ice games. The puck chasing, defensive breakdowns, and coasting on back checks is alarming to witness. When you build a team based off vibes and friendship instead of how to dictate play, this is the drawback when friends get moved to other teams. The leadership core isn’t leading anymore. They are sulking.
There are no positives to take from these sorts of results. These losses are disgraceful, gut punching, and how coaches/managers get fired. This team is clearly just going through the motions every game. They’re not engaging puck carriers, they aren’t defending in front of their net, and there is a general complacency on the faces of the stars.
The worst part is that no one looks upset about these losses except for the coach. We know the makeup of the room is relatively introspective personality types. The guys are very reserved and don’t let their emotions show on the ice, good or bad. This leads to a team went from finding ways to win to finding ways to lose, and lose big.
Not to single out one guy, which isn’t fair, but Alexis Lafreniere is starting to scare me a bit. This guy signed his deserved extension, and for whatever reason, he is reverting back to habits had seemingly been worked out last season. He lost his man on the first goal, and made other questionable at best decisions with the puck. He’s slumping like the rest of the team, but reverting back to the mistakes he made with David Quinn and Gerard Gallant is concerning.
Lafreniere is just one example of a team that is simply not there. They are collecting paychecks and hoping either the coach or the GM get fired. That’s not going to happen. At this point, it’s the players.
