Recap: Kreiderless Rangers Humiliated in 5-0 Loss in New Jersey

In a rare weekday matinee, the Rangers paid a visit to the New Jersey Devils. The last time these two teams saw each other, it resulted in the Rangers getting embarrassed on home ice. While that game was bad, it was nothing compared to the pathetic showing they mustered in their last chance before the holiday break. The stakes were evident going into it seeing as Chris Kreider was a last minute healthy scratch. The Rangers failed him, failed themselves and failed each other, leaving them in an incredibly bad position heading into the holiday break. If you missed the game because you had to work, consider it a blessing in disguise. Nevertheless, here are the details. 

1st Period:

After four minutes of play where the Rangers were being out-shot 4-1 and sure looking like it, Vincent Trocheck got into a shoving match with Paul Cotter which after being separated by the officials, led to the proper dropping of the gloves. 

Lots of good that did as the Rangers immediately turned the puck over in the neutral zone and allowed for Jack Hughes to walk into the zone, let a shot go that floated awkwardly past Jonathan Quick to make it a 1-0 game early. 

On the shift that followed, loads of chaos ensued. Timo Meier broke his stick cross-checking Artemi Panarin. Stefan Noesen would get called for hooking shortly afterwards but once the whistle blew, he and Ryan Lindgren started a shoving match while practically everyone else on the ice, save for Mika Zibanejad, got into a relatively intense scrum. This included Panarin who got as close as you could get to a full on fight without actually having dropped the gloves with Meier. 

The Rangers still ended up with a power play but the two minutes came and went without them even generating a shot on goal let alone a scoring chance. With Trocheck and Panarin in the box and Kreider a scratch, Chytil, Lafrenière and Cuylle took their places on the top power play unit which remained out there for the majority of the man advantage. 

From that point on, there weren’t many stoppages of plays until there were about four minutes to go in the period. This kept Trocheck, who was in the box for the fighting major, in the penalty box for over half the period. With less than a minute to go, another brief scrum broke out with Adam Fox and Nico Hischier taking whacks at each other with their sticks. This quickly resulted in Sam Carrick and Brendan Dillon dropping the gloves for by far the gnarliest fight of the period. 

Dillon’s a tough customer and Sam Carrick did a great job of holding his ground in there and certainly didn’t lose the draw even though he didn’t necessarily win it either. 

An eventful period in terms of shenanigans, but after twenty minutes of play, the Rangers were trailing 1-0 and really didn’t have much going for them aside from the physicality. One of those games where the numbers didn’t really tell the story as the Rangers led in attempts, high danger chances and expected goals for but were being out-shot 8-5. 

2nd Period:

Not even thirty seconds into the game, Dawson Mercer cross-checked Urho Vaakanainen right in the face which left him down on the ice slow to get up. The Rangers got a power play out of it but were again off to a slow start. Somewhere within the first minute of the man advantage, Lafrenière took a stick up high from Jonas Siegenthaler that went uncalled and soon after, he came in flying looking to deliver a big hit on Siegenthaler. Certainly began to feel like this one could really get out of hand. 

As the team’s returned to even strength, the Rangers would be next to be short handed as they were called for too-many men on the ice. The Devils had a couple of big chances on the power play that required massive saves from Jonathan Quick and a good defensive effort from Ryan Lindgren. Haven’t said that in what feels like forever. Once again, so close yet so far away as the Rangers were one second away from successfully killing off the advantage before Mercer fed Meier for a quick one-timer to make it a 2-0 game. 

Meanwhile, Lafrenière and Siegenthaler were on the ice together again and continued to go after each other. Siegenthaler delivered a cross-check and Lafrenière ended up breaking his stick slashing him in return which prompted more tomfoolery, including Jonatahn Kovacevic getting involved. All three of which were sent to the penalty box, coincidentals for the first two and Kovacevic for being the third man involved. 

Another power play came and went for the Rangers that wouldn’t result in a goal. Granted they came close this time around but with each passing opportunity they let fall by the wayside, the deeper frustrations seemed to boil. Nearing the midway point of the period, Brett Berard was called for hooking and Douggie Hamilton was assessed a penalty for embellishment which brought the team’s to two minutes of 4-on-4 play. 

This team hasn’t done much of anything right recently but they couldn’t even complete a successful line change that’s how down bad they are. A second too-many men penalty resulted in a 4-on-3 that eventually led to their second power play goal of the day. A tic-tac-toe passing play between the Hughes brothers turned into an easy second goal for Jack while Zibanejad and the two defenders just watched the play unfold. 3-0. 

At any rate, the poor line changes continued to be a theme as the Devils got caught with six skaters on the ice for quite an extended amount of time before the officials finally realized and called the penalty. Zibanejad was finally demoted to the second power play unit but the power play was just as poor, if not worse than any of their earlier attempts. Not only did they fail to generate anything, they were giving up odd-man rushes, keeping Quick far busier than he should have been. 

And that’s all she wrote folks. Not for the entire game but it may as well have been seeing how this thing went on. Shots after two periods of play were 17-9. The Rangers were again running out of time to prove they had any real fight left in them.

3rd Period:

There were likely tourists skating harder around Rockefeller Center on this Christmas Eve Eve than the Rangers were skating to start this third period in Newark. Down three goals to none in an overall embarrassing effort was not the way to go into the holiday break. 

With twelve minutes to go, another off the rush chance led to beautiful passing while the Rangers stood around and watched yet again. Quick didn’t stand a chance as Stefan Noesen, who has more goals than anyone on this Rangers team, made it a 4-0 game. This is as good a time as any to reiterate, the New York Rangers had 10 shots on goal. Ten. With just as many minutes remaining in the game. 

Meanwhile, in the two minutes that followed the fourth goal, the Rangers gave up two breakaways. God bless Jonathan Quick for still showing an effort as this game easily could have been 10-0 at this point. With eight minutes to go, Lafrenière took another hack at Siegenthaler which sent him off to the penalty box and if it were up to me, that would be the end of his night because what is that really doing for this team at this point? 

Turns out Chris Kreider might be important seeing as the penalty kill completely fell apart without him. Or perhaps this team is just completely broken but nevertheless, Dawson Mercer made it a 5-0 game to keep the Devils perfect on the power play. 

I’ll leave the recap with this. The Devils had a third breakaway of the period and opted to pass the puck backwards rather than attempt to score. Every single member of this team should be completely and utterly embarrassed and equally as livid. 

The only thing this team needed more than five days off was a win today and they didn’t get it. With rosters frozen until the weekend, we won’t see any immediate changes but once this team returns from the break, something seriously needs to change as this team officially has a losing record. They’re back at it on the road Saturday Night in Tampa.