If the New York Rangers miss the Stanley Cup Playoffs this season, their disastrous 4-15-0 slide to close 2024 probably won’t be remembered at the primary reason why.
No, as the their back-to-back losses the past two games so painfully illustrated, the problem is much bigger than any one bad stretch, as costly as that 19-game mess might prove to be. If the obituary on their postseason ends up getting written, it will lead with the Rangers season-long inability to avoid horrendous mistake after horrendous mistake.
Despite the Rangers sporting an 8-3-3 record in the New Year that supposedly indicates a turnaround, they still haven’t been able to eliminate the constant errors that lead to opposing goals and missed opportunities to add desperately-needed points. At no point in 2025 has that been more apparent than the past two games.
Artemi Panarin’s early miscues against Hurricanes left Rangers reeling
Perhaps no sequence will better epitomize the 2024-25 Rangers than Artemi Panarin’s pair of blunders in a 4-0 home loss to the Carolina Hurricanes on Tuesday, those coming on an inexplicable sequence that effectively sealed the Blueshirts fate less than a minute into the game. Panarin had just exited his own zone when he committed an ugly turnover in the neutral zone, with Hurricanes forward Taylor Hall jumping on the puck and carrying it back into the Rangers zone.
Rather than trying to minimize the damage by aggressively backchecking and covering the middle of the ice, which had opened when Hall set up along the right boards, Panarin floated toward the left side – and watched. That allowed Andrei Svechnikov to skate unmarked into the open space and take a pass from Hall, take a few strides unimpeded and bury the golden chance past Igor Shesterkin for a 1-0 Hurricanes lead 56 seconds in.
The Rangers, coming off a crushing 5-4 loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday (we’ll get to that), visibly sagged. Their game followed suit.
“So the first (goal’s) tough,” coach Peter Laviolette said postgame. “You start a game, you go down 1-0, you know it’s a big game, you know it’s against one of the division leaders.”
Laviolette paused.
“That’s a tough one,” he continued, his voice seemingly conveying a season’s worth of frustration and disbelief that’s piled up on him and his team over 50 games.
Panarin’s mistakes recalled the worst moments of the club’s 19-game crash to end 2024. The lack of attention to detail, awareness and perhaps effort that defined the team throughout their first 36 games is still very much present.
There were other mind-numbing gaffes against the Hurricanes. Vincent Trocheck’s attempt to back pass to K’Andre Miller through a defender’s legs on a partial breakaway in the second period, rather than shooting and having Miller coming in to possibly clean up a rebound, didn’t work. Carolina alertly and quickly turned the play the other way, starting an odd-man rush that concluded with Svechnikov’s tap-in goal to give the Canes a backbreaking 2-0 lead.
Turnovers just kept happening. Mika Zibanejad’s struggles continued, when he tried to stickhandle through defenders numerous times to no success. Chris Kreider’s inexcusably poor attempt to clear the zone early in the third was intercepted and kept in by Svechnikov, who got the puck to Sebastian Aho for a goal that made it 3-0. An utterly undefended Seth Jarvis took a pass in the slot and buried it 1:26 later to add insult to injury.
Shesterkin made numerous spectacular saves on a night on which he was perpetually under siege, facing wide-open chances, breakaways and a two-on-none. It was the kind of defensive effort that has been commonplace for so much of the season.
Rangers were already teetering after late gaffe led to Avalanche loss
Despite their climb back to the fringes of playoff contention, these Rangers remain fragile. That was certainly the case after another mistake – one that gives Panarin’s miscues against the Hurricanes a run for their money – resulted in the devastating defeat to Colorado.
Having erased a 4-2 deficit – the tying goal coming from Panarin with 4:58 remaining – and on a power play late in the third, Will Borgen didn’t see Cale Makar coming out of the penalty box and attempted a cross-ice pass to Panarin at the left point. Makar broke it up and triggered a 3-on-1 that led to Artturi Lehkonen’s winning goal with 15 seconds left. The shocked Blueshirts were deprived of any points from a game which they seemed all but guaranteed at least one, with overtime looking like a certainty.
Panarin also made no attempt to get back on the winning odd-man rush, possibly because he was gassed after the power play. And, despite his equalizing tally, he committed a late second-period turnover when he – theme alert – partially fanned on a clearing attempt. It was intercepted by Casey Mittelstadt, who set up Juuso Parssinen for a goal that put the Avalanche up by two.
The inability to clear their own zone has plagued the Rangers for years, and it’s been much worse in this head-scratching season. What’s also been characteristic is their penchant for getting into early holes and having to chase the game. Carolina led 1-0 less than a minute in. Colorado grabbed a 2-0 lead 6:26 into the first period. Even their 6-1 victory over the Philadelphia Flyers last Thursday came after the Rangers surrendered the opening goal at the 1:25 mark, that coming off a 3-on-1 rush.
The Rangers have given up an NHL-high five opening-minute goals this season. Their 20 goals allowed in the first five minutes also tops the league.
“It stings different than the other night against Colorado, but this one, yeah it stings,” Zibanejad said of the loss to Carolina.
There’s plenty of fault to go around, but the Rangers are really suffering from the decline of Zibanejad’s game. The former No. 1 center has been a shell of himself this season, showing little jump on the ice and a lack of the boundless confidence that once characterized his dynamic two-way game. Zibanejad’s postgame interviews seem increasingly anguished, his words those of a player who can’t figure out what has gone wrong.
He’s gone three games without a point, six of the last eight and has just 29 points in 50 games on the season. Zibanejad is also a mind-boggling minus-25 after being plus-70 over the previous three seasons.
While one can argue the Rangers problems are those of a flawed team that general manager Chris Drury still needs to overhaul, there’s plenty of talent on this roster. What ails the current Rangers is not necessarily the absence of J.T. Miller or another high-profile trade target. It’s the eminently correctable trend of mistakes that have led to the puck ending up in the back of their net over and over again.
It’s getting late for this group to commit itself to fixing the problem. If they don’t, and the playoffs turn out to be a pipe dream, it won’t be 4-15-0 that will be the notable stretch of 2024-25. It will be the 8-1-3 burst to open January – one that turned out to be a complete anomaly in a season that went off the rails from the very beginning, and will undoubtedly prompt major changes to the personnel and direction of the franchise very soon.
