The disappointment was palpable in the Rangers locker room Thursday in the aftermath of a 7-1 Battle of the Hudson loss that went from promising to dangerous to worse to downright embarrassing rather rapidly.
“Not proud of that performance,” J.T. Miller said.
It was one of those video games that gets away and all of a sudden, “You’re chasing,” Adam Fox said.
But there was also a sense that it was a one-off, that the habits the Blueshirts had constructed over the previous month since coaching camp started — and over the first eight video games of the season — could flush everything that went unsuitable.
For the worst begin of Dylan Garand’s younger profession to be an anomaly. For the defensive id of checking and forechecking and closing in the third period to materialize again Saturday evening in Columbus. For an offense that had scored at least 4 objectives in 5 of six wins to begin producing probabilities again persistently.
That turns Saturday evening’s match against the Blue Jackets into an early-season litmus check, a gauge of whether they can transfer on from a crushing loss — like they did after their first two defeats of the younger season — or whether this might begin to spiral. The loss in New Jersey dropped them to 1-3 away from the Garden, and three of their next 4 video games will be on the highway.
“[Thursday] shows what happens when we don’t do it,” Mika Zibanejad said Thursday, “and I feel like we’ve been building that game — and that’s why I think it’s easier to spot the difference and what happens when we don’t play our game and the little details that we have to do within our game.”
At the heart of their attempt to erase what occurred will be Garand — the starter for the foreseeable future with Joonas Korpisalo on long-term injured reserve and Igor Shesterkin out for the season.
He entered play Thursday with a .951 save proportion and a 1.15 objectives against average that generated loads of reward, but those numbers dropped to .915 and ballooned to 2.05, respectively, after he allowed 4 objectives on 13 pictures and got pulled.
In each of his earlier two begins since Shesterkin’s proper skate jammed into the post and modified the outlook of the Rangers season, Garand, barely undersized at 6-foot-1, had impressed with his potential to control pucks and play a constant sport.
That’s the method without Shesterkin. That’s the blueprint. The Rangers can’t pressure Garand to do too much, instead placing him in a place to produce the crucial saves like they did for most of the opening body against the Devils until Miller’s brutal turnover led to the first tally.
Thursday was Garand’s first clunker. It marked the only time in eight NHL appearances when he’d allowed more than two objectives. It served as the most objectives the Rangers had surrendered in a sport since permitting six against the Blue Jackets on March 19.
“I know we’re better than this, to a man,” Miller said.
The Rangers are one of 11 groups that haven’t lost consecutive video games through the opening two weeks of the season. They collapsed in the third against the Bruins in the opener but responded with a assertion against the Lightning two nights later.
They lost last Friday to the Capitals on the evening Shesterkin’s season ended, but they averted an emotional hangover two nights later with a commanding win over the Canucks.
“Ever since [the opener], we’ve played really good Ranger hockey, coming up with some identity for ourselves as a group,” Miller said.
Their worst loss yet will check that resolve. It’ll check the emergence of Garand and whether he can thrive in the crease two nights after his low level.
It’ll check whether Alexis Lafrenière can rebound from a minus-4 evening and keep demonstrating that his 11-points-in-nine-games clip is sustainable.
It’ll check whether a deflection purpose from Pavel Dorofeyev on the energy play Thursday — just his second so far — can begin to shift his sluggish begin to the season.
It’ll check whether the Blueshirts, holistically, can transfer on from the rivalry catastrophe and their early highway woes to showcase another reminder that these aren’t the same Rangers from last yr. Another reminder of 2025-26, particularly with Shesterkin out, is something they can’t afford.
“We’ve learned a lot about ourselves over the last couple weeks and the last month,” Miller said, “and I think that we have a high-character group in here — so all we can do is learn from [Thursday] and move forward and be ready for the next game and come out firing.”
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