Rangers vs. Penguins: An Inconsistent Smoothie
Losing to a sub-.500 Penguins team that was without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin? Inexcusable.
- The New York Rangers came into this game with some reason to feel good about themselves. In their last two games, they beat one of the better Western Conference teams in the Vegas Golden Knights, and defeated a team also fighting for a wild card spot in the East in the Boston Bruins. The Pittsburgh Penguins came into this game missing Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin. And the Rangers come out with ... that effort?
- It's not that they didn't show up at all. They did. Eventually. In the third period they held the Penguins to zero shots on goal. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Big fat goose egg. It's unreasonable to expect a team to do that for three periods, but that was the kind of effort that was needed for three periods, not one. Hell, half that kind of effort in the first two periods and they might have won this game.
- As it is, that third period did set a record, but not the kind the Rangers want to be involved in:
— fred lee (@giantflee) February 8, 2025
- And that's the big point, isn't it? I have no idea what version of this team is going to show up on any given night. With a consistently good team, you can forgive a crap game every now and then, because they do happen. With a consistently bad team—and I mean truly bad, like Chicago Blackhawks bad, or Chicago White Sox bad, or Chicago Bulls bad, man what is going on in Chicago?—at least you know what you're in for when you turn on the game. But I have no idea what I'm going to get on any given night with these Rangers.
