NYR/WSH 3/28 Review: The “Days Of Our Lives” Rangers Continue Their Soap Opera; Season Rapidly Going Through The Hour Glass, The Return of DQ and Bad NYR Habits; Rangers Continue To Find New Ways To Lose, Questionable Coaching Decisions, Blackwell’s Birthday Goals, Update on Brendan Lemieux; Tony DeAngelo Comments, Fox Hunt & More

“I just didn’t think we were sharp during the second period. We had some power-plays that we kind of didn’t get a lot from and then, I just thought that our inability to shoot pucks and get pucks on net. I thought there were chances where we might have been able to sustain some zone time and maybe create some offense, but I just thought we were looking for the perfect play and if you do that against that team you are going to spend less time in the offensive zone and I thought that was a big problem in the second period.” – David Quinn, on 3/28/21, moments after the Rangers 5-4 loss to the Capitals in Washington. Based on DQ-19’s quote, it seems like he was doing more thinking than executing. Do you know who needs thinkers and not doers? The TV networks that broadcast these games.

“It was good, Kris has done a great job and he and I have a good relationship. We talk obviously and our systems are the same as in Hartford and we have good conversations during the course of the season. It was good to have him here Obviously he’s been here for the last six games, so with me getting here this morning and him being on the bench and David Oliver not being able to come yet, we thought it was the right thing to do. It was good to have him, he did a good job.” – DQ, also on 3/28/21, when talking about Kris Knoblauch. After today’s game, where the 5-4 score doesn’t tell you the true story of what happened, the “FIRE DQ” folks will only get louder.

“You just gotta go game by game. It’s not easy for anybody. We did think we were out of this predicament, but Covid had a different plan for this year. The guy that is playing the best will play. The thing is, a lot of teams have three goalies now because of the taxi squad and unique situation we are in right now, but we’ve obviously have had three that have played. It is different, I think we did learn some lessons last year in managing three goalies, but really, the simplicity of it all is that the guy that gives you the best chance to win will play.” – David Quinn, after using his third string goaltender in Keith Kinkaid, rather than using his starting goaltender in CZAR IGOR Shestyorkin. While you never know what would’ve happened with a different goaltender in net, I do think that Igor has been playing better than Kinkaid. And really, Igor is the future of this team. Kinkaid is not.

Greetings and salutations everyone and welcome to another blog here on BlueCollarBlueShirts.com. “Like sands through the hourglass, so are the days of our lives.”

The New York Rangers, very much like the “Days Of Our Lives”, have been around forever, with this 2021 season resembling the likes of a daytime soap opera rather than the regular ups-and-downs of a professional hockey team. Just like the “Days Of Our Lives”, there has been a season-long story arch for the Rangers this season, with the season finale set to air after May 8th, which is the date of the final Rangers game of this truncated season. And oh – for those wondering, the Rangers close out the season with two games against the Islanders, two games against the Capitals and then play their final two games in Boston. Those should be fun times!

Of course, whether it’s on Saturday May 8th or perhaps on Monday May 10th; the Rangers, as an organization, will then reveal the thrilling conclusion of this season-long story arch, where on one of those dates, they will answer the burning “will they or won’t they” question, regarding the job status of David Quinn.

I’m not going to go into repeat mode on David Quinn here. Just check out my prior blogs from this season for my detailed thoughts.

Like any good soap opera or any drama show on television, during the course of a season, the writers and actors tell many different side-stories along the way, while building up a major story-line that then usually gets wrapped up at the finale. For the 2021 Rangers, they are no different. (And while there are “cliffhangers” in the television world, I don’t expect the Rangers to leave DQ’s job status up in the air at the conclusion of this season. I think the Rangers will answer this question right away, in one way or the other.)

While the job status of DQ has been the top story of the season; in each episode or game of this Rangers season, there are other plots and “B” stories to discuss. Whether it was the stuff with DeAngelo, Panarin, another three goalie situation or the trade of Brendan Lemieux, like an Emmy Award winning show, the Rangers keep you hooked. And like any good drama, there are feelings of joy, misery, ecstasy and heartbreak from game-to-game and episode-to-episode. Today’s 5-4 loss to the Capitals was no different.

Going into this game, you knew that if the Rangers lost or even played bad for just a second, all of the blame was going to fall onto the shoulders of DQ. While some of that stuff is idiotic and quite unfair, the fact of the matter is that after a bunch of hot starts in games under the 4-2 Kris Knoblauch, the Rangers had another nightmare of a start in this game with the Capitals.

All of the stuff that has plagued the Rangers under DQ returned in this game. The team, sans a late power-play goal, were disastrous on the power-play today. The goaltending was iffy. The top stars, and again, sans a late power-play goal from Chris Kreider, couldn’t get on the board, as both Mika Zibanejad and Artemi Panarin were held scoreless. Jake “The Mistake” Trouba’s daily showing of shooting 796776796 pucks wide every game must be contagious too, as it seems that for a 50 minute stretch there, the Rangers had a case of “Trouba-8”, as they all shot high and wide. It cost them.

Even worse, for the 8th time this season, the Rangers, down by one goal and looking to find the equalizer behind their 6 x 5 attack, once again came up empty-handed. With 34 games down and 22 remaining, the Rangers are still looking for their first 6 x 5 goal of the season, which is a type of goal they’ve given up a few times this season, in the final seconds of games that they had held a one-goal lead in. (In addition, the Rangers are now 3-8-4 in games decided by one goal.)

The playoff hopes, hopes that I’ve been trying to grasp on to, despite the team embracing a “one step forward, two steps backward” mentality all season; are all but dashed. If there’s anything the Rangers do well, it’s being consistently inconsistent. This one game alone was evident of that. Need proof? I’ll give it to you now.

There was over an 18 minute stretch of time in this game, where the Rangers didn’t have one shot on goal, a stretch of time which also included two Ranger power-plays. Down 3-0 after two periods and with only 12 shots on goal; the Rangers, after giving up a fourth goal at the start of the third period, responded with a four goal third period. Of course, it was another case of “too little and too late” for the Rangers. But hey – they got their moral victory! Even better – they found another new way to lose! No one does a better job of finding different ways to lose than the Rangers, not even the Sabres. (Sabres just get their doors blown off.)

Truth be told, I’m not surprised about this Rangers loss. In fact, I thought they’d lose this game 4-1, which at one point, was the score of this game. That being said, like an idiot, when the Rangers made it 5-4 with under four minutes to go, I started to believe and started running down playoff scenarios in my head. You’d think I’d know better than to get my hopes up by now!

If anything, this loss should’ve been expected, especially since the Caps have won 9 out of their last 10 games, while the Rangers have only put together two different win streaks of three games this season, with both streaks deserving an asterisk due to the quality of competition. (Wins over the Sabres.) It’s just a shame that once again, the Rangers couldn’t put together a 60 minute game and it cost them.

There are many reasons why the Rangers lost today, and I think the first reason is because of what DQ did before the game even began. For whatever reason, with the team needing a win since their season is on the brink, David Quinn went to third string goaltender Keith Kinkaid. As I’ve been saying all along, I would’ve kept CZAR IGOR going until he gave you a reason not to. To be fair, I don’t know if Igor said he was tired or not, but really, Igor has been off for so long and had played well in his last two games. I don’t know if it’s this era of coddling everyone or not, but who cares if Igor had to play back-to-back matinee games? Compounding matters, is what DQ said after the game, about wanting to use his best goaltender.

And if prior to this season, and with a healthy Igor on the roster, if you had Keith Kinkaid playing in what was pretty much the near equivalent of a “Must Win” game, then I tip my hat to you.

If you’re a regular reader of mine, you know how I feel on DQ. I’m not in the “FIRE DQ” crew. However, I won’t hesitate to comment on what I disagree with either. If there’s anything that bothers me about DQ, it’s the way he talks out of both sides of his mouth, and how he’ll say something and with his actions, go against what he just said.

Keith Kinkaid, to his credit, has been admirable and respectable for the Rangers this season. However, he shouldn’t have been in net today. Georgiev shouldn’t have been in net either. You ride the hot hand. In addition, with Igor missing so many games already, this would’ve been a true test of his stamina. Instead, DQ puts out his third string goaltender against the top team in the division. (And yes I know Kinkaid played well against Washington last time, but that was with Igor still on the IR.)

There’s a bunch of mini news items to get into today. Let’s rock and roll. However, as usual – the PLUGS segment.

Here are my last few blogs in case you missed them:

NYR/PHI 3/27 Review: Rangers Not Only Stub Their Toes, They Completely Break Every Bone In Their Own Foot Too; Drop Crucial Game to Flyers, CZAR IGOR’s Amazing Game Wasted, Sam “The Should’ve Been Suspended” Moron, DQ-19 Returning & More. Plus: Rangers Trade Brendan Lemieux To LA, Thoughts on the Deal & What the Rangers Could Do Moving Forward (Hello Geersten?)

NYR/PHI 3/25 Review: St. Hat-Tricks Day Massacre Part II! Mika’s Historical Déjà Vu; Another Mika Hat Trick Poops on Philly, Multi-Point Games Galore Including a 5-Pointer For Adam “Please, a Hometown Discount” Fox, Strome 3:16, Buchnevich vs AV, Ron Duguay’s “Up in the Blue Seats” Podcast Review w/Pete Stemkowski, DQ-19 Soon To Enter Roughest Stretch of His Career; Rosen Already There, MSGN, Knoblauch, Vitali “Brady” Kravtsov, Return of The CZAR & More

NYR/BUF 3/22 Review: Rangers Handle Business; Eke By Buffalo in a “MUST-WIN” Game, Big Multi-Point Games For Kreider, Kakko, Strome, Panarin & Fox; Fox’s Family, Kinkaid’s Game Changing Saves, Outstanding NYR Special Teams, Kravtsov Rangerstown Bound; Who Gets Benched, Dan Girardi’s Coaching Debut, Creepy MSG Networks & Number 1 Fans, Knoblauch vs DQ, Playoffs (PLAYOFFS?), Time To Man-Up To Philly & More

Before getting into the Lemieux update, I have to say this. Doesn’t Rachel Levine look like Rex Ryan in drag? Has anyone seen Rex Ryan and Rachel Levine in the same place and at the same time? After all, we do know that Rex Ryan has some kinky fetishes!

Ahem. Moving along.

Brendan Lemieux commented on his trade to LA on his Instagram account. Here’s what he said:

Prior to Lemieux making his comments above, the banished and exiled Tony DeAngelo also took to Instagram, where he said this:

I spend way too much time on social media as it is, and use only Twitter and Facebook, where I really just quickly scroll through Facebook. I don’t have Instagram, Snapchat, MySpace, Plenty of Fish, Tik-Tok, Vine or whatever else is out there. I do have a mean GrubHub app on my phone though!

Anyway, a few of you guys forwarded me these Lemieux and DeAngelo postings. I didn’t even know DeAngelo was back on social media until you guys sent me to his Instagram page. Ironically, Parler is back, yet DeAngelo hasn’t made the move there as promised.

In my personal opinion, of the social media platforms that are out there, Twitter is just the easiest to use. While like any social media platform, Twitter can be a toxic cesspool of know-it-all’s; at the end of the day, it is the best place for breaking news and has the greatest reach. After all, that’s why Donald Trump was on it in the first place. (And that’s not a political comment, that’s just to say that’s why Trump did all of his social media stuff on Twitter rather than anywhere else.)

Maybe it’s me, but I always found Instagram something that females use to doll their pictures up with and for thirsty men to ogle at. I never found Instagram to be a news source. I guess since I’m not in the Instagram target demographic, like how many of these athletes are, I’m now missing out on news being posted there. That said, I’m not creating an Instagram account, so if you see news on there, continue to feel free to send me links of newsworthy postings. Plus, I get into enough trouble on Twitter as it is!

In other news regarding the Lemieux trade, prior to the game, David Quinn met with the media, where he said, “It was a logjam, obviously with Kravtsov here and Howden getting healthy, some guys doing well in Hartford, it seemed like the right thing to do and it’s gonna give Pepe to play in a little bit more of a role that he is looking for. He was a good player for us and we are going to miss him.”

Very diplomatic.

However, in Day 1 of the Post Lemieux era, we didn’t see Kravtsov. We didn’t see Barron or Geersten either. Instead, we saw the return of Phillip DiGiuseppe, which isn’t much of a roster upgrade, nor does anything for the rebuilding Rangers.

If there was anything truly baffling, in the fall-out of the Lemieux trade, it was this quote from David Quinn, while talking about Kravtsov:

“I literally just said hi to him this morning, for the first time. We have so much going on here, we haven’t talked in depth about what the plan is, the plan is obviously for him to continue to practice and when we feel he can, we’ll get him in there.”

DQ has been in his house for the last 11 days. He couldn’t pick up the phone? He couldn’t put on a mask and make a zoom call? These five words are just outrageous: “WE HAVEN’T TALKED IN DEPTH”. What the hell is he waiting for?

In other words, rather than giving Kravtsov a chance out the gate, and with the team nowhere close to sniffing the playoffs, the Rangers are going to try to “ease in” a player that’s already been playing all season and has had success. With 22 games remaining on the schedule, when is Kravtsov going to get his shot? With less than 10 games remaining? How DQ and the Rangers don’t have a plan yet is one thing, to publicly admit this fact is just bewildering. What a joke.

“One step forward, two steps back” folks.

Let’s finish off the news segment with what the Rangers tweeted out before the game:

Kris Knoblauch remained behind the Rangers bench today, but this time, as an assistant coach, filling in for David Oliver. I covered the goaltender stuff already. As far as the line-up went, everything remained the same from the last two games, except for the one obvious change where Phillip DiGiuseppe replaced Lemieux. If that’s the plan for Tuesday, that tells you that the Rangers are giving up.

GAMBLING segment time. Here’s what I said before the game:

Season over-under record: 14-17-2
Kinkaid v Samsonov today. You can shop around and get this game at -6 or -6.5. Matinee games just suck. Big test for DQ, where I think defense will be stressed. I’ll take the UNDER on the -6.5 line. #nyr pic.twitter.com/y5MSJJDurD

— BlueCollarBlueShirts (@NYCTheMiC) March 28, 2021

I had this game the whole way, and then the final ten minutes happened. After a four game win streak, I’m now on a three game losing streak, as my record worsens to 14-18-2.

Box score time.

The following information and graphics come from the new world-wide leader in NHL coverage, in ESPN.com.

SCORING:

PENALTIES:

GOALTENDERS:

TEAM STATS: (Note how the Caps won every single pertinent stat, except for special teams.)

This was an NBC game, so instead of the hyenas and jackals at the MSGN, we had a half hour of Joel Osteen giving us expected prayer stats. After that, we spent a few minutes with the NBC guys, where really, they were complimentary of the Rangers, especially Flyers analyst Keith Jones, who just saw the Rangers play the Flyers three times in less than a two week time span.

On the call today was the great Kenny Albert, Eddie O. and Brian Boucher. If there’s any criticism I had of the broadcast, in particular of Edzo and Boucher, it’s that they spent too much time talking about recent history, like the Zibanejad 5 goal game, the 6 point game and the Tom Wilson suspension. We all know this stuff. Sometimes, they focused on this recent history more than the action that was going on. That’s all. Aside from that, they did a great job as usual.

I’m not going to lie to you. Recapping this game feels like a waste of my time, especially the first forty minutes. I may rush a bit, because I just want to forget about this game and move on.

I don’t know if I’d call the first period boring, but there were certainly times that it dragged on, due to a ton of whistles after icings and offside calls.

After Mika won the opening face-off, Tom Wilson immediately crushed Buchnevich. Wilson would go on to have a monster of a game. Brendan Lemieux anyone? Hmmm…..

On the Rangers second possession of the game, Artemi Panarin fed Kakko, who was all alone and in front of the net. If Kakko had shot here, this may have been a goal. However, as he far too often does, Kakko tried some Harlem Globetrotter nonsense and Samsonov easily poke checked the puck away. Rather than a quick 1-0 lead, the much maligned Kakko still hasn’t figured out that shooting the puck when you have the chance is the best way to score goals. Off the top of my head, I can’t remember Kakko scoring after doing his theatrics with the puck this season.

Caps head coach Peter Laviolette then exploited DQ early on, as Lavy was able to get his first line on against the Rangers fourth line. The Rangers avoided giving up a goal here, despite some hairiness.

With not much going on, Ovi would finally take a shot, where it went high and wide. I guess that #8 is contagious. That said, Ovi wasn’t sick for that long today.

In another “what if” play, Kreider had Buchnevich wide open and in the paint of Samsonov. Brenden Dillon broke up the pass, thus thwarting off a good Rangers scoring opportunity.

In a weird play, after a shot block, Adam Fox had trouble getting to his feet twice. I didn’t know if he lost one of his blades at the time, but that wouldn’t be the case, as he’d eventually get back to the bench. The announcers didn’t mention any of this, because Edzo and Boucher were going off about Mika’s hat trick game from over a year ago.

With 8:28 to go in the first period, it looked like the Rangers would get on the board first. From behind Samsonov’s net, Zibanejad fired a shot off of the face of TJ Oshie and the puck trickled to the goal line, where had the puck spun just a quarter of an extra rotation, it would’ve been a goal. Originally, the refs ruled this as a goal, but on replay, it was shown that the puck was only 98% over the goal line. No puck luck for the Rangers here and Oshie avoided becoming a goat in NHL highlight reel shows. In addition, Orlov swept the puck off of the goal line, helping to keep the Rangers off the board. This was definitely one of those “c—” hair/”game of inches” type of plays.

On the next possession, Samsonov denied a Zibanejad one-timer. For whatever reason, and despite doing several Rangers games this season, NBC announcer Brian Boucher always pronounces Mika’s last name as “Zibinijid”.

After a great shot on net from Panarin, there was no Ranger there for the rebound/loose puck. Edzo called out Kakko for not going to the middle, which is always a frequent criticism of Kakko’s game. Edzo also questioned where Strome was, but I’ve never seen Strome get shy about going to the middle.

With the game under five minutes to go in the first period, we got a shot of David Quinn on the bench, a DQ who didn’t look healthy. His usual Razor Ramon jericurl looked as flat and lifeless as the Rangers offense.

As we got to 2:35 remaining, the referees reared in their ugly heads. After TJ Oshie clobbered and floored Kevin Rooney with a high hit, Blackwell, filling Lemieux’s now vacated role, went right after Oshie and without a second of hesitation. Both Oshie and Blackwell threw their gloves and had a Greco-Roman wrestling match. For whatever reason, only Blackwell was penalized here, thus giving the Caps a power-play.

I mean, how many times have we seen a play like this happen this season? EVERY TIME, where 9/10 times it’s a Ranger defending himself, both men go to the box. Only Blackwell was penalized here, as Oshie, who hit Rooney high and did throw his gloves, was able to return for the Caps power-play. The officiating has just been dreadful this season.

Thankfully, the Rangers would get this kill on a Caps power-play that should’ve never happened to begin with.

0-0 after twenty minutes, as the Caps were one shot away from doubling-up the Rangers in the SOG department, as the SOG stat read as Caps 11, Rangers 6. What we didn’t know, is that starting in the latter stages of the first period, the Rangers would be held without a shot on goal for period of 18+ minutes. Pathetic.

Unfortunately, we didn’t get a “SECOND PERIOD, WHAT DO YOU LOOK FOR HERE EDZO?” <a shot on Goal damn it!> out of Kenny Albert.

This second period was brutal. In fact I’m going to breeze through it because this was sickening.

After killing off a Brendan Smith penalty that was assessed at the 3:25 mark of the period, at the 7:11 mark of the period, Dowd would go to the box for tripping Blackwell. The Rangers wouldn’t get one SOG during this power-play, keeping their streak of no shots on goal alive. All I could think of here, was how Knoblauch said yesterday, when talking shots on goal, that the Rangers were about “quality” and not “quantity”. If you play like that, that means you’ll never get a rebound goal, a deflection goal or a screened goal. And if you’re only going to have 6 SOG at the half-way mark of the game, they better all be Gretzky snipes.

As we went under the half-way mark of the period, Kakko was graciously credited a shot on goal, on a shot that may have been going wide. Samsonov gloved it and the Rangers shot drought was snapped.

With 9:17 to go in the period, Vrana shot the puck and Tom Wilson buried the rebound. Nothing Kinkaid could do here besides not give up a rebound. With the score now 1-0, bad guys, the strategy of “BEAT ‘EM IN THE SHOOTOUT BOYS” was over.

Less than two minutes later, with 7:31 remaining in the period, Ovi took a shot from the sideboards, right near where the red/goal line is. Kinkaid may have been partially screened here, but this was a bad goal to give up. If you’re an optimist, at least it was Ovechkin and not some no-name fourth liner or third pair defenseman getting this type of bad angle goal. 2-0, bad guys.

With 7:09 to go, Tom Wilson tripped Brendan Smith. Wilson must’ve had a hard-on for Smith, because after all, Smith challenged Wilson to a fight the last time these two teams played, which was in Wilson’s first game back since suspension. Wilson didn’t oblige then and wouldn’t oblige here, but he did take two tripping penalties against Smith today.

After another Rangers power-play without a shot on goal, Wilson came out of the box and scored. 3-0, bad guys, with 4:53 remaining.

The Rangers woke up a little bit here, as Kreider was stopped on a breakaway and Mika hit a post from a foot away. With the Rangers attacking, Carl Hagelin high-sticked Gauthier, giving the Rangers their third power-play of the game. To make sure that they wouldn’t score on the power-play, Mika decided not to shoot while wide open and passed the puck across the blue line, in a failed attempt to hook up with Panarin. Nice.

After forty minutes, Caps 3, Rangers 0. The Caps were just dominating the Rangers and in every which way.

The Rangers would out-score the Capitals 4-2 in this period, allowing the Capitals to win this game by one goal. If you’re a glass half-full person, you can say the Rangers tried to make a comeback under DQ and looked good despite coming up short. If you’re a glass half-empty person, you can say “too little too late” and “same old shit”. You could also say where was this effort in the first forty minutes?

After the Caps killed off the remaining 14 seconds of the Rangers power-play, Kakko actually went to the middle, but didn’t shoot. Instead, he fed a wide-open Chytil, a Chytil who was camped to the left side of Samsonov. Despite the net being wide-open, Chytil slammed the puck wide by a country-mile. Another blown scoring chance.

1:50 into the period, Hajek was boxed for interfering with Wilson. On a short-handed two-on-one attempt, it was Miller’s turn to join the Shoot Wide Party, as he airmailed a shot to kingdom come. Another blown scoring chance.

After the Rangers got their kill, at the 5:10 mark of the period, Kuznetsov finished off Kinkaid after a great pass from Hagelin. 4-0, bad guys. Game over… or was it? (It would be, but this wouldn’t be the game winning goal.)

As everyone bitched and moaned, Colin Blackwell made a great move and tucked the puck into the right post for a goal. 4-1, bad guys and with 13:18 to go. At the time, this felt like a “at least they won’t get shut-out” type of goal. However, with 10:19 to go, Blackwell scored again! Two goals for the birthday boy, (Blackwell is now 28 years old) and overall, a great game for someone who needed to have a great game, especially while considering the current state of the roster.

At 4-2 and with a shade over ten minutes to go, this game had now become mildly interesting. However, two minutes later, with 8:13 to go, TJ Oshie scored a deflection goal after Schultz bombed a shot from the point. Tough to hang Kinkaid here, but when you give up five goals and have a save percentage of .773, it’s never a good game. 5-2, bad guys, and once again, it felt like game over. That wouldn’t be the case, at least not yet.

In a game which now turned into “goaltending optional”, and with 7:42 remaining, Lafreniere easily scored off a puck-on-pads play, a play set up by his buddy Julien Gauthier. 5-3, bad guys.

As we got under the FOXWOODS FINAL FIVE MARK, with 4:03 to go, Wilson tripped Smith again. Nine seconds later, Strome found Kreider down low and Kreider got a good stick on the puck, beating Samsonov. 5-4, bad guys and a rare Rangers power-play goal in this game!

As your ass cheeks started hanging off of your couch, the Rangers continued to attack, in their attempt to tie the game. Samsonov would make a huge save on Chytil, to keep the Caps razor-thin lead alive.

With two minutes remaining, Kinkaid went to the bench for the extra skater. The Caps would ice the puck four times during these two minutes and the Rangers couldn’t make them pay during any of these face-offs. The Caps held on, shutting down the Rangers comeback in what was an inspiring third period, but a reminder that these teams play three periods and not just one.

As I said earlier, there are a bunch of different reasons why the Rangers lost this game and I think it started the second when Kinkaid was announced as the starter. In addition, if you want to reach, maybe the Rangers were down and suffered a morale blow with the trade of Lemieux.

When it comes to the on the ice stuff, the Rangers shot on goal drought of 18+ minutes didn’t help. Everyone shooting wide didn’t help. 0-3 on the first three power-plays, where they had two power-plays with no shots on goal didn’t help. Kinkaid wasn’t hot. You rarely saw the Rangers screen Samsonov in this game. No goals or points out of Mika and Panarin isn’t a recipe for success either. And outside of the Gauthier designed puck on pads play with Lafreniere, you rarely had any Rangers looking for rebounds.

Ultimately, as has been the case during most games under DQ this season, the Rangers didn’t give a full 60 minute effort. They gave about 10 minutes here. They have now dug too big of a hole to climb out of.

Lastly, while on DQ, as far all the “FIRE DQ” chatter goes, I don’t think anything will happen until the end of the season. Really, I wouldn’t be shocked to see the Rangers bring him back either. Firing DQ is an admittance of failure by Jeff Gorton, a Jeff Gorton that has his own problems already. Of course, push comes to shove, the GM is always going to try to save his own job before all and that includes firing a head coach. That said, Gorton has been in DQ’s corner the whole way, especially with the DeAngelo situation and with the trade of Lemieux. (DQ does not like outspoken players, which is probably a trait he adopted while in the college ranks.)

If you want something to root for, as the Rangers play out the rest of the string, it’s that Adam Fox picked up two assists today, giving him 26 apples on the season. As I’ve been saying, while I’d love to see Fox win the Norris, these year-end awards usually favor players on playoff teams.

If you haven’t already, subscribe to this blog for the next update:

Back at it Tuesday night, as this time, the Rangers will host Washington inside of the World’s Most Famous Covid-Free Arena.

Stay FABULOUS my friends.

Until then, and as always here, thanks for reading and…

LET’S GO RANGERS!

Sean McCaffrey

BULLSMC@aol.com

@NYCTHEMIC on Tweeter