Rangers vs. Panthers: Some Fight At Least
The Rangers keep finding new ways to lose, but at least they're still losing.
- The hopes for this one weren't strong out of the gate, to be honest. The last time the Rangers played the Panthers they had zero (seriously, zero) regulation losses. The feeling was still that this was going to be the most boring regular season of all time. The Rangers lost that game, as you may remember, and it started this journey of what I would consider the most New York Rangers six weeks of the history of the New York Rangers.
- Of course, that didn't have much to do with Monday night's contest. The Rangers entered the game with an abysmal 16-18-1 record, good for worst in the Metro.
- Peter Laviolette elected to make zero changes from the lineup that got absolutely wrecked by Tampa Bay in the previous contest. Zac Jones remained on the bench, Mika Zibanejad remained in the lineup, and fittingly it was Zibanejad's backhand turnover to no one that directly led to Florida opening the scoring for their 1-0 lead.
- Let me just get the Zibanejad thing out of the way at the top ...
