The Rangers took a stroll down the path of least resistance in Boston on Thursday night and ended up hitting straight into a dead end of a 4-0 loss to Bruins that did not reflect well on anyone.
Alexandar Georgiev, pulled from his second consecutive match and his third in 11 assignments this season, inexplicably gave up on another long that put the Blueshirts in a 1-0 hole after 4:14 that must have been filled with quicksand, given the way how the club was simply swallowed up by him.
The club generated little offensive in five to five and few chances to score against Jaroslav Halak. The work without the disc when the Bruins were in possession was defective. The team was unable to insert the disc consistently and therefore unable to enter the bow check. Fifty and fifty battles weighed about 70-30 for Boston.
The power play was tough, impotent and worse than that by rendering a shorthanded goal for the second game in a row, this one by Patrice Bergeron with a feed from Brad Marchand at 17:34 that made it 2-0 and practically ended the competition phase of the night.
“That was just the bottom breach in a lot of ways. I could feel it, ”said David Quinn, much more optimistic than expected. “That short goal was very easy.”
The coach and the two players who took the podium for the Zoom question, Brendan Smith and Jacob Trouba, managed to put positive spins on the performance. Everyone talked about how the club went on and competed to the finish line. Maybe they even believed it. Maybe they need to believe this with their season on the edge.
It is three consecutive defeats now against the Penguins and Bruins, after three consecutive victories achieved against the Sabers and the Demons. Just when it became necessary to move up the class, the Rangers fell almost in the middle of the season with the playoff cutoff nine points away.
“I think we have to be more urgent and understand how fast this season is going to get to us,” said Quinn, whose 10-13-2 mark represents the worst record of 25 games in the franchise since the never regretted 2002-03 team had the same results. “We need to be sure to stop the bleeding.”
A tourniquet may be needed for Georgiev, who conceded a pair of goals at 1:21 at the start of the second period, Boston scoring in power play at 3:31 and then with uniform strength at 4:52 to both build a 4- 0 lead and chase the goalkeeper after he has seen 14 kicks.
The 25-year-old Bulgarian goalkeeper has been pulled twice in 71 matches over the first three seasons. He has been pulled three times in 11 games this season and has developed a tendency to yield not only feature lengths, but group goals.
Three games ago, the Devils scored twice in 17 seconds. In the last start, the Penguins scored three goals at 1:01. Now that for Georgiev, who faced 14 shots on Thursday, allowed seven goals in 20 shots in 42:06 in his last two games and 14 goals in 102 shots in 226: 03 (0.863, 3.72) in his last five matches.
Teams cannot win when they never know when one is entering. This upsets everyone’s balance. Of all the unexpected developments this season, the goalkeeper’s issues occupy second place on the surprise list, behind only Mika Zibanejad’s null and invalid debut eight weeks ago. Igor Shesterkin’s status remains unknown on Saturday as he continues to recover from his groin injury.
Artemi Panarin may return to the fray on Saturday and, in fact, he probably will. Perhaps the return of No. 10, after losing nine games, will inspire his teammates to greater heights. So, too, it shouldn’t be difficult for the Rangers to raise their level after this straight performance.
Quinn changed his lines early in the second period, bringing together Chris Kreider-Zibanejad-Pavel Buchnevich, who became a staple for the coach when his team is in trouble. But the first starting line generated little. Zibanejad may have undergone a major change here or there, but it was a figure most of the time.
Perhaps the most encouraging news of the night was Filip Chytil’s ability to face the clashes after postponing the first six games of his comeback, due to a fractured hand that he suffered in the fifth game of the season. But Chytil’s game was below average, illustrated by the way David Krejci was able to easily pull the No. 72 puck out from behind the New York net before preparing Jake DeBrusk for the 4-0 goal at 4:52 am second.
But he was part of a crowd that included almost everyone, most notably Ryan Strome and Alexis Lafreniere. Kaapo Kakko, by the way, did not score a goal for the 14th straight game. Once again, however, this was for everyone.
Therefore, the Blueshirts try again on Saturday. They may want to take a different path this time.