First Period:

• Artemi Panarin (6) Assists: Filip Chytil (7), K’Andre Miller (7)
• Mika Zibanejad (11) Assists: Chris Kreider (9), Jacob Trouba (6)
• Tomas Tatar (6) Assists: Jesper Bratt (18), Nico Hischier (15)
• Yegor Sharangovich (7) Unassisted

Second Period:

• Jack Hughes (12) Assists: Dawson Mercer (9)
• Michael McLeod (3) Assists: Miles Wood (5), Fabian Zetterlund (8)

Third Period:

• Vincent Trocheck (8) (Power Play) Assists: Chris Kreider (10), Adam Fox (19)
• Yegor Sharangovich (8) (Empty Net) Assists: Tomas Tatar (9)

Stats:

Adam Rotter:

• It’s just another disappointing performance from this team. I can’t necessarily fault them for blowing a two goal lead against one of the best teams in the NHL with 57 minutes left, but as a whole they were disappointing and didn’t have the flow or pushback to their game that you hoped to see after Saturday’s third period debacle. They started to play better in the third, but it’s just not enough and it’s not enough consistently.
• Two things carried the Rangers through most of last season: the PP and Igor Shesterkin and neither has been good enough. I’ve always cut the goalies some slack because the players in front of them hang them out to dry, screen them or add a degree of difficulty to their job. Last year Igor Shesterkin didn’t need slack, he was dominant from pretty much start to finish, but this season he hasn’t been able to get into that kind of groove. He just looks like he is trying to do too much and while he’s been fine for the most part, but fine isn’t good enough for this team. The hope was that the team itself would be better in front of him and lessen their absolute reliance on him, but that hasn’t happened and Shesterkin hasn’t made those 2-3 extra saves. I do think that he is the least of their worries, but either he needs to pick the rest of the team up, or the rest of the team needs to step up until he gets his game fully in order.
• The PP did score late in the third, but they had chances earlier in the game and they needed to convert on one of those. The PP scored timely goals last season and they need timely PP goals again this season.
• They are still making too many mistakes with the puck, struggling too much to get the puck out of their zone, struggling too much to get it through the neutral zone and struggling to make any play that isn’t broken up or leads to a turnover. They just make everything harder when they try to force plays and it’s costing them.
• The Devils can make anyone look slow, but the Rangers looked, played and executed slowly. They are slow in their decisions and are then, usually, making the wrong ones.
• Vitali Kravtsov is far from a savior, but it’s ridiculous that he keeps sitting out. Sit Ryan Carpenter, shift Barclay Goodrow to the fourth line and give Kravtsov a chance. I don’t think he’s a savior, but maybe he’s a spark.
• I wonder if Alexis Lafreniere should either sit for a game or be shifted up to the top line. It’s opposite ends of the spectrum, but something in his game needs a change.
• Until they either do it or they get eliminated from the playoffs, I’ll always believe that this team is talented enough to run off 7-8-9 straight wins and get into the position in the standings that they were expected to be in. But we are past 20 games and at some point your potential on paper gets eclipsed by who you are on the ice. Right now the Rangers are mediocre, disappointing and frustrating. The other thing is that at some point this frustration is going to lead to changes. I don’t know what those changes are because the Rangers don’t have a ton of roster flexibility and when you can’t make roster changes, you usually change the coach. We don’t know Chris Drury well enough yet to know how he would handle a situation like this, but at some point the heat is going to be turned up on Gerard Gallant. I think it’s probably too early for that, but the talk about Barry Trotz will increase with each loss. I’m not sure if the Islanders have to grant permission to speak to Trotz, if they would or if Trotz wants to take the full year off and return to coaching next year, but some level of changes are bound to come if the wins don’t.