Rangers lowlights outweigh highlights with season teetering on brink of full disaster
Aside from maybe the Sabres, no NHL team needed to step away from their season more than the Rangers did this week. So much has happened through the first 2 ¹/₂ months of the season. Two notable trades, two big contract extensions, one league-wide memo and so much more has been compacted into just 34 games. The very public details of the locker room’s unrest have been inescapable for a group that considers itself to be airtight. And it has all weighed the Blueshirts down into the basement of the Metropolitan Division, as well as 23rd in the NHL, which is where the club will resume its season Saturday in Tampa Bay. Hope for a turnaround has dwindled drastically as the Rangers dropped 13 of their last 17 games.Not just because the number of remaining contests has diminished, but because the team has consistently failed to generate an on-ice product worth believing in. Just like a lot can happen in 34 games, however, even more can happen in the 48 remaining. A lot will need to go right for the Rangers to regain playoff position, but it is not impossible. Sustaining success has not been easy.
Whether it’s shift to shift, period to period or game to game, the Rangers will need to rediscover that part of their game if they wish to keep their postseason aspirations alive. When you sign your best player to a record-setting contract for his position and said player continues to be your best player, that’s a win.The Rangers haven’t had many of those lately, on or off the ice, so we’ll give them that one, for sure. Locking star goalie Igor Shesterkin down for the next eight years at $11.5 million per when the Rangers did was a smart business decision.
Who knows what could’ve happened if the season continued to get out of hand. Since signing the extension Dec.8, Shesterkin has gone 2-4-0 with a goals-against average of 2.63 and a .926 save percentage.
Under the circumstances of the atrocious defense in front of him, that’s about as much as Shester...