Rangers fans outraged over Peter Laviolette’s latest comments: ‘I have no message right now’

The New York Rangers dropped another game Monday night, 5-1 to the Tampa Bay Lightning at Madison Square Garden. The loss further complicates their remote chance to make the Stanley Cup Playoffs for the fourth straight season.

New York is eight points behind the Montreal Canadiens for the second wild card in the Eastern Conference after Montreal defeated the Detroit Red Wings 4-1 on Tuesday night. The Rangers have five games remaining; the Canadiens have four.

The loss to the Bolts was bad enough for Rangers fans, as was New York allowing three goals in a 1:45 span in the first period. But a postgame comment by coach Peter Laviolette infuriated the faithful even more.

The veteran coach was asked what his message to the players was after their latest dismal defeat.

“I don’t have a message right now,” Laviolette said postgame. “I don’t go into the locker room after the games.”

Considering that a major section of the fan base wants Laviolette fired for overseeing one of the most disappointing seasons in franchise history, he didn’t do himself any favors in the court of public opinion.

To be fair, it’s not uncommon for NHL coaches to stay out of the locker room after a game, win or lose — especially with a veteran team like the Rangers. Each coach is different.

The frustrated bench boss kept his answers short when talking about the state of the team, and looked like he couldn’t wait to depart the interview room. For good reason.

The Rangers likely need to win all five of their remaining games, which would get them to 89 points, and hope the Canadiens fall on their face. Montreal’s magic number to eliminate the Rangers is three.

“We needed to win a game tonight and we didn’t win,” Laviolette said simply. “There’s been a lot of that throughout the course of the year.”

Rangers fans react to Peter Laviolette’s postgame comment

As Laviolette continues to fail at coming up with answers for his team, nor to inspire them, Rangers fans continue to grow tired of the coach. Many want him fired, which may be the case if the Rangers fail to pull of a miracle and make the playoffs.

That’s despite Laviolette leading the Rangers to the Presidents’ Trophy last season while setting franchise records for wins (55) and points (114).

It’s hard to disagree with the notion that Laviolette has checked out on the season, just by looking at him and listening to him. While that may not be the case — it would be career suicide — the players certainly appear to have checked out on their coach.

Like Laviolette, the players have a hard time finding answers.

“Just a couple mental lapses,” center Vincent Trocheck answered when asked what went wrong in the first-period meltdown. “I think just obviously the one penalty kill, a couple penalties, and then a turnover on the first five-on-five goal.”

Simply “a couple mental lapses” huh? Clearly Trocheck, one of the team leaders, doesn’t have any more answers than his coach.

Team scoring leader Artemi Panarin tried to sum things up by saying, “If we keep playing like that, we’re going to miss the playoffs. It’s hard because it’s last chances right now, but we still have them, so no one give up, we actually try to play hard every minute.”

That would be a nice change of pace, but even if the Rangers do turn things around and play hard every minute, it may be a case of too little too late. Still, the message from Panarin is much better after the loss than the one from Laviolette, who has Rangers fans in an outrage after admitting he had no message for his team.

The bottom line is that the Rangers have five games left, and will need a miracle run in order to earn a playoff berth. If they don’t make it — and it’s looking more and more that way — we may see be witnessing the end of Laviolette’s tenure behind the Rangers bench.