The New York Rangers’ season has fallen completely off the rails with their losing skid over the last two months, and they’ve fallen out of a postseason position after having started the campaign with a solid 12-4 record.
During Thursday night’s Rangers game at Madison Square Garden against the rival New Jersey Devils , another example of New York’s struggles emerged. The Rangers blew a 2-on-0 rush between Reilly Smith and Vincent Trocheck that could have knotted the score at 2-2. Smith broke in alone on goaltender Jacob Markstrom, and then passed back to Trocheck, who proceeded to fire the puck wide.
And fans reacted swiftly to the mishap, with many of them saying it’s indicative of how the season has gone of late for the Rangers.
“That about sums it up for them,” wrote @SHCBackupAcc.
“He’s a compete bum. I don’t know why the Rangers always go out and get button six players and expect anything out of them,” wrote @ghostkoopa.
“Nothing we can do at this point other than laugh,” added @AidanNYR.
The New York Rangers were recently called out by former captain Mark Messier
Amidst their losing streak, the Rangers were called out by former Stanley Cup-winning captain Mark Messier, who called them “fractured”.
“The core of the Rangers is fractured right now,” Messier explained. “And I don’t think they’re fractured internally. I think there’s a disconnect between management and the coaching staff, there’s a lack of trust and loyalty now and in order to get over that it’s going to take a lot of work.”
“You can tell with Kreider, one of the longest-standing Rangers of all time, he’s clearly been hurt by being put on the trade block, for whatever reason,” he said. “That has had a profound effect on the core of the team. When you put Chris Kreider on the trade block, that affects his best friend, Zibanejad. The cascade effect of that has clearly been evident over the last month.
“Now, as players, we have to be big enough, strong enough, man enough and man up to get over that. We are not in control of some things that happen as players. Management can do whatever they want and we have a responsibility to each other as players. They’ve got to get over that. We haven’t seen a lot of emotion from the Rangers over the last month.”
After the Rangers finish their matchup against the Devils, they’ll face the Vegas Golden Knights on Saturday.
