Rangers lacked everything in game that shouldve been circled on calendar

They can’t all be Habs, Wings and Penguins. Points are not discounted in the NHL, and the Rangers’ victories against Montreal, Detroit (twice) and Pittsburgh each counted for two points in the standings.That, plus the single point the Blueshirts achieved in an overtime loss to Utah, had them riding high at 5-0-1 heading into Thursday’s early-season Garden showdown with Cup champion Florida. And the Rangers took a belly flop against the club that ended their season in the Eastern final.

They downplayed the match at the morning skate and played like it was just another game against another middling or lousy opponent.It wasn’t. The Blueshirts were a flatline when emotion was required.

They played a vanilla game when rocky road was necessary.There was an absence of physicality.

If I were an anonymous poster on a message board, I’d go into a daily rant about the marginalization of Matt Rempe, scratched for the fifth time in seven games, but you should have gotten my point by now. Update: There will be no daily rants about scratching Rempe, for No.73 was assigned to the Wolf Pack following the match.

Maybe someone in the organization will explain what happened in the offseason that changed the hierarchy’s (and/or coaching staff’s) opinion of the winger.If I tell you one more time that I don’t get it — and don’t get it at all — I will sound like one of those single-issue message board posters. But back to this one. “It seemed like we didn’t have the pop we needed to beat that team, I would agree with that,” head coach Peter Laviolette said.

“That’s on us.We have to be better than that. “They had more jump than us, they were quicker on the rush, they added the third man and the fourth man on the rush all night, and we didn’t catch them.

We weren’t there to defend it.” There are so few big games that merit a red circle on the calendar.This one did.

At least, this one should have.Maybe the Rangers were just being too coo...