by The New York Rangers had a chance to break out of their slump against the struggling Nashville Predators, but were unable to capitalize on that advantage en route to a 2-0 loss on Tuesday night.
Overall, the Rangers had a strong start to the first half. Unfortunately, it was short-lived.
A sloppy defensive mishap led to a goal by Jonathan Marchessault that the Rangers ultimately couldn’t recover from.
While New York played a more structured game and had their moments offensively, they failed to generate enough quality scoring chances and the team felt a bit disjointed in some ways.
Trailing by a goal in the third period, the Rangers showed no sense of urgency, frustrating Peter Laviolette.
“What I didn’t like was the third period,” Laviolette said. “I thought they had an advantage over us. We needed more in the third half when we were 1-0 down. Then you have to find a way out of something, and we can’t do that at the moment.”
The Rangers have now lost 11 of their last 14 games. Frustration continues to grow as these losses pile up.
“We want to win. So when you don’t win, it’s frustrating,” Laviolette said. “We have to find a way out, and quickly.”
Laviolette took a more aggressive tone after the game while the players delivered a positive message.
Chris Kreider thinks the Rangers need to start simplifying things if they want to get back on track.
“I think the most important thing is to take it one game at a time,” Kreider said. “Win a game. Take some of the things we did well, learn from mistakes and keep building.”
“If we keep talking about it, we’ll stick with it. We are not the team we were yesterday, we are not the team we were two days ago, we have a chance to win the next game so let’s get what we can out of this game, let’s move on and win the next game.”
The Rangers will be back in action on Friday night against the Dallas Stars.
