After winning the Presidents’ Trophy with the NHL’s best record in 2023-24 and reaching the Eastern Conference Final, the New York Rangers entered this season with Stanley Cup expectations.
Nearly halfway through the season they are failing to meet those expectations in a stunning way.
With Tuesday’s 2-0 loss to the Nashville Predators, the Rangers have now lost 11 of their past 14 games, sit on the outside of the Eastern Conference playoff picture and are just 15-15-1 on the season.
It also might only be the start of an even bigger slide.
Not only are the Rangers playing extremely poor hockey, their upcoming schedule is an absolute gauntlet of games that will feature eight of the next 12 on the road and have them go up against some of the league’s best teams.
Those next 12 games are against Dallas, Carolina, New Jersey, Tampa Bay, Florida, Boston, Washington, Chicago, Dallas, New Jersey, Vegas and Colorado.
The only team in that group of games that is not currently in a playoff spot is Chicago, while nine of those games are against teams currently in the top-10 in the league in points percentage.
The Rangers are already a team in turmoil, having traded their former captain — Jacob Trouba — with a locker room that seems to be on edge given the way Trouba and veteran forward Barclay Goodrow were forced out since the end of last season despite having no-trade clauses.
Even with their success a year ago, the Rangers still had some huge flaws that snuck under the radar, especially regarding their defensive zone play and 5-on-5 play. Those flaws were masked by elite goaltending and a dominant power play. This season the goaltending has not been quite as elite (it is still very good, however) and the power play has dropped from the top-five down to the middle of the pack. Without those two areas to boost the team up, the flaws are only getting magnified.
There has also been almost nothing done to address those flaws.
Now the competition is only going to get tougher.
Head coach Peter Laviolette and general manager Chris Drury should consider themselves on the hot seat, while Trouba might not be the only player that is about to head out of town.
This is supposed to be a Stanley Cup contending team. Instead it is a team that is a mess and does not seem to have the answers on how to fix it.
