Reality sinks in for Rangers as New York’s last playoff hopes dwindle: Takeaways

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Well, one team in the New York City metro clinched a playoff spot Wednesday. No, it was not the New York Rangers, who sit a whopping eight points out of the second wild-card with four games left, but Peter Laviolette’s club did a favor for the rival New Jersey Devils. New York’s 8-5 loss to the Philadelphia Flyers secured New Jersey a spot in the playoffs.

That’s about how it’s going for the Rangers. They can’t even lose in peace without their rivals profiting.

New York isn’t technically eliminated, but that will happen soon. The Rangers sit behind the Montreal Canadiens, Detroit Red Wings, New York Islanders and Columbus Blue Jackets for the second wild-card spot. The Canadiens would have to lose out all in regulation and the Rangers would have to win all their remaining games for a berth to be possible.

“It’s a sh—ty feeling in here for sure,” Adam Fox said. “We’re hanging on by a thread at this point.”

Here are takeaways from the loss, which came with plenty of defensive blunders, a few career milestones and plenty of questions for the future.

Reality sinking in

A week ago, after an overtime win against the Wild, the Rangers were tied with Montreal in points and the Canadiens had only one game in hand. But a three-game losing streak paired with a Montreal heater has made it clear: the Rangers aren’t making the playoffs.

“Let’s be honest, we haven’t really helped ourselves over the last couple weeks,” a dejected Mika Zibanejad said. “A couple weeks ago I felt like it was in our hands still — take care of the games that we had. But we haven’t been able to do that. … It stings.”

“The frustration and disappointment level has been there,” Laviolette added.

Missing out on the playoffs means a long offseason ahead. Laviolette’s future in New York is in question, and team president Chris Drury will almost certainly make major changes to the roster. That’s what happens when a team goes from a league-best record one year to out of the playoffs altogether the next.

With four games left in the season, there’s not much Jonathan Quick or the Rangers can do about their trajectory. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

Power play woes continue

Over the past six games, the Rangers have allowed four short-handed goals, including one to Garnet Hathaway Wednesday.

The Rangers, meanwhile, have only four power-play goals over the past 19 games. Over the past six games, they have been outscored 4-2 when on the power play.

“There have been different ways that short-handed goals have been coming,” Zibanejad said. “Obviously from us not executing and getting into the zone or being over-aggressive and staying in, especially playing against some of the teams that are attacking a lot on their kill. We should’ve been able to do a better job tonight.”

Along with giving up the Hathaway goal, the power play failed to score in three opportunities against the Flyers, who have a bottom-half penalty kill this year. The Rangers only managed one shot in those chances. Along with giving up the short-handed goal, they allowed a short-handed chance to Ryan Poehling that rang off the crossbar.

New York’s power play has been one of the main reasons this season has slipped away. The Rangers have scored at only a 17.2 percent rate this year, which ranks 27th in the league. Last year they were third at 26.4 percent.

Brodzinski career-best year continues

Jonny Brodzinski does not hesitate to put the puck on the net, which makes him valuable to a team that’s middle-of-the-pack league-wide in goals per game. With the Rangers down a goal in the third period, Brodzinski grabbed an Urho Vaakanainen pass and flung it past Aleksei Kolosov to tie the game. It was Brodzinski’s 11th goal of the season, five more than his previous career high.

The 31-year-old Brodzinski, a career journeyman before settling into an NHL role the past two years in New York, earned a nod Wednesday morning as the Rangers’ nominee for the Masterton Trophy, which is given to the player who “who best exemplifies the qualities of perseverance, sportsmanship, and dedication to ice hockey.”

Rangers let opponents get to the net in another defensive disaster

The Rangers’ defensive structure has been an issue all season, and the Flyers attacked the net and were often rewarded for it. With the score tied in the second, Adam Fox lost track of Noah Cates, who cut to the net. Travis Sanheim found him with a pass. Jonathan Quick moved across his crease in time to make the save, but the rebound moved right to Sanheim, who buried it.

Then, only a minute after the Rangers took the lead in the third on a J.T. Miller goal, Owen Tippett fired a puck toward the net. Jonathan Quick allowed a rebound, no Rangers were there to box out Jakob Pelletier and Emil Andrae, and Pelletier pushed the puck over the line.

Both those goals came in a third period that saw the Rangers allow six goals, two of which were on an empty net.

“I feel like we’ve been struggling back and forth with that all year,” Zibanejad said of the breakdowns. “I’m trying to come up with something else to say. I just feel like I repeat myself every time we have these scrums after a loss, and today it’s just not good enough.”

Will Cuylle said the game snowballed on the Rangers, just as it did Monday against Tampa Bay.

“It’s not as good as it has to be,” Cuylle said.

When asked if he thought his players were confused within the man-on-man system, Laviolette said, “There’s no confusion out there. There’s just missed assignments.”

A long night for Quick

Jonathan Quick has been a bright spot for the Rangers the past two years, but he did not have a strong night against the Flyers. He will want back the Hathaway goal, which went through his legs, and he probably should have been able to cover the puck before Pelletier buried it.

Perhaps his roughest moment came when Matvei Michkov put a puck in the vicinity of the net. Quick directed the rebound right to Flyers captain Sean Couturier, who put it back in the net for a go-ahead goal.

Quick finished the night with a .786 save percentage (22 saves on 28 shots) and allowed 3.49 goals above expected, according to Natural Stat Trick.

Jakob Pelletier gets the puck past Jonathan Quick on a rebound in the third period. (Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

Zibanejad’s tough season with breakaways

Early in the first period, J.T. Miller sprung Zibanejad on a breakaway and Cam York slashed him as he cut to the net. The officials awarded Zibanejad a penalty shot, but he missed wide, continuing a season of struggles in breakaway situations.

Zibanejad is traditionally excellent on breakaways and has a 40.8 percent success rate in shootouts. This year, though, has been a struggle. None of his 17 goals have come on breakaways despite multiple chances on the year, most notably in overtime in January games against Colorado and Columbus. He also is zero-for-one on his lone shootout attempt, which came against the Blue Jackets.

If he does not score a shootout goal in the next four games, it will be one of only three seasons in his career without one. The others are 2011-12, when he played only nine games and did not get a shootout attempt, and the shortened 2021 season.

Cuylle breaks single-season hits record

Cuylle finished the night with five hits, putting him at 290 on the season. That passed Ryan Callahan (285) for most by a Ranger in a season since the league started tracking the stat in 2007-08.

Cuylle also picked up his 40th point of the season with an assist on J.T. Miller’s goal.

Perreault scratched

Top prospect Gabe Perreault played the first three New York games after he signed out of Boston College, but Laviolette scratched him Wednesday, putting fellow rookie Brett Berard back in the lineup.

“I think for a young player, especially straight out of college, there are going to be times where you can teach him and show him and let him watch and learn and practice and play in some games as well,” Laviolette said. “He’s been good. Just a young player who draws out tonight.”

Laviolette said the coaches were going to go through video with Perreault. He called it a learning process for young players.

“Big step coming out of college and right into a lineup,” Laviolette said. “Other players are sitting out as well that we want to continue to look at and put into the lineup as well.”

(Top photo of J.T. Miller and Sean Couturier: Bruce Bennett / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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