Holding On to Hope!
Rangers Out Last Vancouver
Photo: Rangers fans need to start praying that all the other teams in the Eastern Conference start losing more games, if the Rangers have any hope of making the playoffs.
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN—After losing to the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Thursday night, the Vancouver Canucks visited the blueshirts on Broadway Saturday afternoon for what could have been the last nail in the coffin for the Rangers playoff hopes.
That’s right, the Rangers playoff bubble is about to burst if they lose one more game. Therefore the question was could New York bounce back against one of the better teams in the NHL?
GAME NOTES
Chasing the game and falling behind has been a never ending story line for the 2024-25 Rangers. So when Dakota Joshua slapped the puck past an out-stretched Igor Shesterkin at 11:51 of the first period, there wasn’t much to cheer about in Rangerstown.
Shesterkin, once again, played his best in net—the problem isn’t goaltending, but the lack of defense in front of him. On the Joshua goal, Shesterkin made two initial saves, before Joshua outworked the Rangers defense to get a third shot on net.
Vancouver took their 1-0 lead into the second period, when Adam Fox scored his 6th goal of the year, as he tipped in a shot from Braden Schneider to tie the game at 1-1 with 9:57 seconds left to go in the period.
But things were going the blueshirts way in this game. Through two periods of play, New York had taken only 6 shots on net, compared to 24 shots taken by the Canucks, who were peppering Shesterkin all game.
Thankfully, the domination on the ice wasn’t translating onto the scoreboard, as the two teams started the third period tied 1-1.
Through the first 40 minutes of play, this game was a tight checking performance by Vancouver along with outstanding goaltending by Shesterkin. But then everything changed in the last 20 minutes.
Through two periods, there were only two total goals scored and then in the final 20 minutes, both teams allowed a total of 6 goals into the net.
The first goal of the third period came from Jonny Brodzinski, who has found his game, as of late. At 1:39 of the third, Brodzinski scored the first of two goals to give the Rangers a 2-1 lead. But then at 11:22 of the period, Drew O’Connor scored to tie the game back up at 2-2 with an assist from former Rangers defenseman Victor Mancini.
Then at 12:40 of the period, K’Andre Miller got his 6th tally of the year from Vincent Trocheck to regain the lead 3-2. But less than three minutes later, Brock Boeser scored his 23rd goal of the season to tie the game back up 3-3.
Thirty-seven seconds after the Boeser goal, Brodzinksi knocked in his 9th of the season and second of the game from Alexis Lafreniere and Carson Soucy to give the Rangers the one goal lead 4-3.
Now there was only 4:13 left in the game to see if this was the end of the Rangers season.
As the game started to wind down, Vancouver decided to pull the goaltender with around two minutes left to play and then with only 17 seconds left on the clock JT Miller fired the puck from deep inside the Rangers zone to score an empty net goal. This was Miller’s 17th goal of the year.
The Rangers had fought back hard in several times throughout the game several, which is why they were able to secure two necessary points in the standings with their 5-3 win on Saturday afternoon.
GAME ANALYSIS
The Rangers are 3-5-2 in their last 10 games, which means by some sheer miracle, New York is still holding on hope for a playoff birth. But let’s be real here, with the Rangers have been playing, they are not poised to make a playoff run.
As of today, New York has 74 total points in the standings, which puts them only one point behind Montreal and five points behind Ottawa.
But let’s not get too excited yet, since the Rangers have now played two more games than both Montreal and Ottawa, not to mention they have also played two more games then the Islanders, Blue Jackets and Red Wings, all of which are right behind the Rangers in the standings.
This means, Rangers fans need to start praying everyone else to starts to lose more games otherwise it could be lights out on Broadway very soon.
There is only one story line for this game and its the same thing we have seen all year. Shesterkin is literally the only bright spot for this team and without him—they are scheduling tee-times at New York’s local golf courses.
The big problem seems to be that no one has any answers for why the Rangers can’t play defense as a team?
But here’s another glaring problem that has been popping up lately. The Rangers aren’t taking very many shots on net anymore. In yesterday’s game, only five forwards took at least one shot on goal for the blueshirts. JT Miller, Alexis Lafreniere, Chris Kreider, Jonny Brodzinksi and Matt Rempe are the only forwards with a shot in the game.
Meanwhile, the Rangers defense accounted for 4 shots of the 12 total shots taken by the entire team. That’s it folks. The Rangers took only 12 shots in 60 minutes of play.
But if that wasn’t enough, another recent issue is the number of give aways. The Rangers gave the puck away 21 times against Vancouver. Why can’t the Rangers hold on to the puck? And is this becoming a huge problem for the blueshirts?
There were only two bright spots for New York. One was Shesterkin in net. Igor stopped 36 of 39 shots. And New York also hit the Canucks a whopping 57 times in the game.
GAME STATS
Will Cuylle led the team with 8 hits
4 players had 6 hits in the game (JT Miller, Vincent Trocheck, Braden Schneider and Carson Soucy)
Brennan Othmann had 5 hits in the game
NEXT GAME
The Rangers will start their final west coast road trip on Tuesday night in Los Angeles. The Kings are 7-2-1 in their last 10 games and are also sitting pretty in 3rd place in the Pacific Conference with 85 points.
But this won’t be an easy road trip by any stretch of the imagination. The Kings are within striking distance of 1st place in the Pacific division, which means the Rangers cannot overlook the Kings on Tuesday night.
If the blueshirts can somehow pull out a victory on Tuesday, they will have 76 points and will know whether or not they are still in the race or not. That’s because the Rangers won’t play their next game till Friday, meanwhile the Islanders play one extra game this week.
Is it “too little, too late” for the Rangers? Will they take more than 12 shots on Tuesday night? Or will the Kings overwhelm the Rangers in the City of Angels?
Stay tuned to find out…