The Rangers are marching right toward their demise.
If the lackluster shutout loss to the Devils on Saturday afternoon didn’t seal their fate, a 5-1 loss to the playoff-bound Lightning on Monday night at Madison Square Garden all but put a nail in the coffin on a Blueshirts season that never had much life to begin with.
With only five games remaining, this latest defeat keeps the Rangers six points behind the Canadiens for the final wild-card spot in the East. Montreal will have a chance to extend it to as many as eight, while the Red Wings and Islanders will both have an opportunity to surpass the Rangers with wins Tuesday night.
A Blue Jackets win Tuesday night would also pull Columbus into a points tie with the Rangers.
It has reached the point where the Rangers would need a miracle to qualify for the postseason.
“It sucks to be in this position,” Jonny Brodzinski said. “None of us wanted to be in it.”
This has been the realistic trajectory of the Rangers for a majority of the 2024-25 campaign, over which they have lost themselves and become unrecognizable compared to the Presidents’ Trophy-winning team they were last year.
Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin #31 defends the net during the second period.
Head coach Peter Laviolette may have changed up the personnel on each line, but they still competed much the same. After all, the Rangers’ problems have spanned well beyond who their sixth defenseman or 12th forward is for quite some time.
That much was evident once again against an always competitive Lightning team, who already clinched their spot in the playoffs.
The Rangers were without top four defenseman K’Andre Miller due to illness, which brought in Zac Jones for the first time since March 25. Laviolette also scratched Brett Berard in favor of Matt Rempe.
“Some of that had to do with the opponent tonight and their top line,” the second-year Rangers coach said of swapping Brennan Othmann and Gabe Perreault from the top six to the bottom six. “Just making sure that we had pieces out there that we thought could handle that line.”
As has become expected throughout this season, the Rangers pushed until the first sign of adversity.
They dumped seven shots on Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy and limited the visitors to one through the first half of the opening frame, but Tampa Bay’s first goal proved to be the first of three in an embarrassingly short span of one minute and 45 seconds.
Rangers center Matt Rempe checks Tampa Bay Lightning defenseman Erik Cernak during the first period.
After Chris Kreider negated the final 11 seconds of the Rangers’ first power-play opportunity by taking a hooking penalty, the Lightning cashed in on their first chance with the man advantage.
Brayden Point fed Nikita Kucherov off the rush for the 1-0 lead, and it was a pile on from there.
A slick backhander from Yanni Gourde as the Lightning forward fell to the ice made it a 2-0 game. Point later put one in from the side of the Rangers net during Tampa’s second power play — his first of two goals with the man advantage on the night.
The Rangers were booed off into the first intermission before they heard the same jeers at the final horn once again.
The Rangers’ playoff hopes are all but done.
Managing to cut the Lightning’s lead to 3-1 on the power play, Mika Zibanejad scored the lone goal of the second period — his 17th of the season and seventh with the man advantage — to get his team on the board.
That would prove to be the home team’s lone goal of the contest, before Point netted his second power-play goal at the end of the third period to ice the game.
“It’s kind of real hard because it’s last chances right now,” Artemi Panarin said. “But [we] still have them and no one [is giving] up.”
-1741756434-q80.webp "Can Calle Jarnkrok Be a Maple Leafs Difference Maker?")