New York Rangers come up small in a big spot once again

New York Times

05-04-2025

NEWARK, N.J. — A slow start. A key short-handed goal against. No ability to break through. A shutout loss here, against the rival Devils, that carried plenty of importance and heralded some change.
Oh, sorry — was just reminiscing about Game 7 of the 2023 first round. That night in Newark, a 4-0 loss by the Rangers ended a disappointing season, Patrick Kane's brief time in New York and Gerard Gallant's coaching tenure in a dud of a finale.
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There were some similar feelings after a similar game on Saturday afternoon. This most recent 4-0 loss to the Devils doesn't slam the door on this wretched 2024-25 for the Rangers, nor does it necessarily seal Peter Laviolette's fate as coach. You and I have seen far too many games this season where the Rangers played way, way worse to think that this Saturday afternoon letdown was something shocking or unexpected.
But it had a lot of the hallmarks of that Game 7 a little less than two years ago. The Rangers looked old that night, much slower than a Devils team that played aggressively and with structure to deny the Rangers' seemingly high-powered lineup, as it did winning four of the last five games in that series after the Rangers dominated Games 1 and 2 here, making it look like it was going to be a cakewalk.
The Rangers are still very much in the thick of the race for the final wild-card spot with six games to go, regardless of the outcome of the Canadiens' game with the Flyers on Saturday night. But a team that's gone 2 for its last 43 on the power play and been outscored by the opposing penalty kill 3-2 in that monthlong span doesn't feel like it's in the thick of anything, except the deep recesses of its players' own heads.
Who would have ever thought that confidence would be an issue with this power play, one that's been among the best the last three years? J.T. Miller subbed in for Chris Kreider on the top unit and that group did generate a handful of good looks on the Rangers' first power-play chance, but on the second, all four forwards were caught below the hash marks and the Devils raced up three on one.
Jesper Bratt buried Nico Hischier's feed for a 2-0 Jersey lead — Timo Meier had scored four seconds into the Devils' lone power play, just to rub a little lemon juice in that paper cut — and that was really it. The Devils had just 16 shots on Igor Shesterkin, so the Rangers defended pretty well. They just didn't do enough at the other end and that has been the way it's gone too many nights this season: Either the Rangers are clicking on offense and neglect their own end, leaving Shesterkin to save the day, or they commit to staying in shooting and passing lanes, stay with their men in the D zone and generate next to nothing.
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'It seems like that, right?' said Adam Fox. 'When we know our offense is going, I think it tends to maybe make us think we're just playing all offense and give up some heavy chances. And when we're defending well, we're only thinking about defending really well. It does right now seem like it's one or the other.'
That's not a winning formula. The last time the Rangers were here was just before Christmas, when everything was going wrong; the 5-0 shelling they took that day was just another horrid performance in a month filled with them.
But on Saturday, the Rangers had lots to play for. They came in two points behind the Canadiens, having won two in a row after losing five of six. You would have thought that scenario would bring out the best in the Rangers, even after the season that's transpired.
Instead, they generated one shot attempt in the first 8:40 of the game. It went wide, in case you were wondering.
They did warm to the task in this one and had a couple pucks in prime scoring spots, 'zone one' as Laviolette called it. Kreider fumbled away a chance gifted by Jacob Markstrom; Will Cuylle fumbled one away in a similar spot just before Meier scored again to make it 3-0. That first power play had a couple of its best looks in weeks, all foiled by Markstrom.
Jacob Markstrom shuts out the New York Rangers out for the SECOND time this season 🧱
Joining some ELITE company 😤 pic.twitter.com/N0oCU2SpJK
— ESPN (@espn) April 5, 2025
Whatever this Rangers team needs this season, no one is able to deliver consistently. Brennan Othmann and Gabe Perreault each got regular top-six shifts through two periods and Perreault got some power-play time but neither right now is a difference-maker who can put this team on his back. Cuylle, who looked like he might hit the 25-goal mark this season, has two in his last 17 games.
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The Devils, meanwhile, have become a stingy team since Jack Hughes was lost for the season a month ago. Their top guys, Hischier, Bratt and Meier, are two-way players who don't gamble much and create offense from being hounds defensively.
The Rangers don't have that. Mika Zibanejad's shell of his former self leaves the Rangers without a true 200-foot player. Miller and Vincent Trocheck are responsible guys who can also score, but neither has the speed or quickness to play the way the Devils' top guys do. You live with Artemi Panarin's gambles because he's the most sure thing offensively that the Rangers have, so on a day like Saturday when there isn't much room either way, it falls to someone else to get a greasy one.
The Devils look like a team that understands it will take every player pulling on the rope to get somewhere. The Rangers look like a team still trying to figure it out in Game 76.
Laviolette may go the same way Gallant did after that Game 7 failure two years ago. Circumstances were different: Gallant had openly feuded with GM Chris Drury after the Rangers' Game 4 loss at the Garden and Gallant wasn't Drury's top choice two years prior. Even a trip to the Eastern Conference final in 2022 wasn't enough to convince Drury that Gallant was the right coach to lead this team to a Cup.
Laviolette was supposed to be the right coach and looked the part last season when the Rangers won the Presidents' Trophy and again got within two wins of a Final. But the fall has been hard and fast this season, from Drury's roster management to the players wilting and Laviolette stuck in between, unable to find the right message to get through to this group.
If the axe falls in two weeks, it won't be a surprise. And it won't be as a result of this 4-0 loss on Saturday, even though it had all the hallmarks of another Rangers letdown in this building to their local rivals.
The Rangers wondered back after that Game 7 how they could have failed to show up for such a big game. On Saturday, there wasn't the same quiet tension in the room after the loss. These Rangers, like you and me, have been wondering all year what the heck has happened to them.
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'I don't really have much for you,' Fox was left to say. He was talking about the power play but he could have been talking about this entire season. Saturday wasn't the start of something bad, just the latest in a long line of bad ones. And we're all left to figure out what's happened to this once-reliable team.