Photo: The Calgary Flames came into New York and outworked, out hustled and outshot the Rangers.
MADISON SQUARE GARDEN—With excitement and optimism, New York Rangers fans tuned in to watch the Rangers battle the Calgary Flames at home on Tuesday night with a chance to finally secure a wildcard spot, but those hopes were quickly dashed as the blueshirts failed to score enough goals.
So what happened?
GAME NOTES
Tuesday night’s game started off really well for the Rangers when Artemi Panarin scored his 30th goal of the season with only 1:13 expired off the clock, but that’s where the good news ended.
The Rangers managed to take only 5 total in the first and ended the game with only 13 shots for the entire game. Yes, that’s right 13 total shots for a 60 minute game.
And Calgary took full advantage of the Rangers anemic offense.
Before the first period ended, Nazem Kadri scored his 24th goal of the season at 10:22 and then Matt Coronato tallied his 17th of the year with less than two minutes to play in the first period.
And that’s all she wrote for the scoring in this game.
Igor Shesterkin played his heart out stopping 33 of 35 total shots. Not to mention that Shesterkin literally kept the Rangers in the game throughout the second and third period, as Calgary dominated time of possession, offensive zone time and high quality scoring chances.
New York lost by a final 2-1.
GAME ANALYSIS
So where do the Rangers go from here? And we need to ask this question, because there seems to be a ceiling for this roster that we can’t seem to crack.
The truth is the Rangers are playing better hockey. They don’t look as lethargic as they once did, they do show more grit and determination during the game, but the overall result is still the same.
The Rangers have now lost 6 out of their last 8 games, which means dreaming about playoff runs seems insane.
So what do the Eastern Conference standings look like?
Screenshot: ©ESPN 2025 NHL Standings
As you can see the Rangers are in big trouble as of Wednesday March 19th. New York only has 72 points, but more importantly Ottawa and Montreal have 2 games in hand on the Rangers.
This means, the Rangers could potentially be 8 points behind Ottawa and 5 points behind Montreal. Not to mention that the Islanders could leapfrog the Rangers and be ahead by 2 points, as well as Columbus.
Last night’s loss could be the beginning of the end for the blueshirts entire season.
So what next?
Well, the fact is they are not mathematically eliminated yet, which also means they still have a chance to turn things around, but —they can’t lose any more games.
I know that sounds obvious, but at this point in the season the Rangers must play 100% desperation hockey. If the entire roster does not play like their life depended on it, then this season is over.
GAME STATS
With the Rangers scoring only one goal, there are not a lot of offensive stats in this game to report. Thus, instead, what I though I’d focus on is the stats within the game.
For example, the Rangers had 37 total hits in the game, which is very good. They also blocked 16 shots. These are great stats and shows that the Rangers team is playing much better hockey.
But here’s the issue.
They gave the puck away 20 times in the game and only had 1 takeaway. If you were trying to understand what happened Tuesday night, basically Calgary was a much faster team, they beat the Rangers to every loose puck and also they stifled their offense completely.
So much so, that the Rangers gave the puck away 20 times and were unable to get any forecheck presence or steal the puck back from Calgary. When you have that level of disparity between takeaways and giveaways—you are going to lose the game.
But here’s one more thing you should consider.
When you have a goaltender like Igor Shesterkin, he can make you look better than you really are in reality. Shesterkin came up with highlight reel saves in the second and third period that only he could make.
Therefore, without Shesterkin the Rangers probably should have lost this game 3-1 or even 4-1. And this is the point.
Shesterkin is the X-Factor.
It’s a real shame that New York is wasting Igor’s talents on a team that’s just not capable of putting all the puzzle pieces together.
NEXT GAME
On to the next game on the schedule, which is against the Toronto Maple Leafs. The Maple Leafs will be coming into Madison Square Garden Thursday night feeling some pressure as of late, since they have been 5-4-1 in their last 10 games.
Although it seems very unlikely, there is a slim possibility Toronto could fall out of the playoff race, even though they have 83 points right now. But if the Senators, Canadiens and one other team can get hot down the stretch—and the Toronto Maple Leafs keep losing games —they might actually not make the playoffs.
And the reason I bring all of that up is this. Toronto must win Thursday night against the Rangers. Therefore, New York must bring their A game to play against the Maple Leafs. Mitch Marner and Auston Mathews are not looking at the Rangers game as a throwaway, since they are going to need the two points in the standings, just as much a the Rangers need two more points.
Can the Rangers take more than 15 shots in the game? Will the Rangers be able to hold Toronto to less than 2 goals? Or will the Maple Leafs completely overwhelm the blueshirts and blow them out 7-2?
Stay tuned to find out…