The New York Rangers benched Chris Kreider against the New Jersey Devils on Monday afternoon, but their fortunes still didn’t change.
The Rangers were brutally defeated 5-0 as their struggles continue to get worse and worse.
Peter Laviolette tried sending a message by scratching Kreider, and that message was clearly not received.
From the start until the end, they were outplayed, outmatched and completely embarrassed.
The Devils were moving the puck up and down the ice with ease with the Rangers not being able to do a thing about it.
New York struggles against teams with speed, which clearly showed throughout the afternoon.
The Rangers are not just losing, they are losing without showing an ounce of effort and passion.
“We should be embarrassed,” Vincent Trocheck said.
Embarrassment is an understatement. The Rangers have expectations to win the Stanley Cup, and at this point that seems more like a pipe dream.
To wear the Blueshirts logo is an honor and right now this team is not representing New York in the right way.
“We’ve got to look at ourselves in the mirror here and come back really hungry, because this is just not winning hockey we’re playing right now. It’s miserable for us,” Ryan Lindgren said. “It’s miserable for the fans. It’s time to figure it out.”
Mentally, the Rangers are just off. Their confidence is fragile and one little bad sequence of events completely throws them off rhythm.
“Every game it feels like it has to happen that night,” Trocheck said. “Just seems like we get down early or we get down at any point in the game and we just fold. That can’t happen.”
Through 34 games, the Rangers are at a scary point and if they don’t get out of this funk quickly, their season could get out of hand, resulting in drastic changes toward the team’s core and foundation.
“Well we are not where we want to be,” Laviolette said. “Mentally we are not where we want to be, record wise we are not where we want to be anywhere. So it’s not what we are here for. We are here to win hockey games and we are not doing that right now.”
The Rangers will be back in action on Saturday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.
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