NEW YORK — On a recent road trip to Tampa Bay, I walked by a pizza joint donning a sign that proudly proclaimed, “We use New York water!” But while the water up north may make for better quality dough, something about it doesn’t seem to agree with the New York Rangers.
It’s as if they get food poisoning every time they set foot in Madison Square Garden.
Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning was the Rangers’ ninth defeat in 11 tries on home ice this season. They’re 2-8-1 at MSG, with five points registering as a new franchise low through their first 11 home games, according to NHL Stats. But it’s about more than just the mounting losses; it’s the embarrassing manner in which they’ve unfolded in front of the loyal Garden crowd, who continue to fill the building despite the disheartening performances.
“They were more willful than we were today,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller said of the Lightning. “At no point in that game were we deserving of winning.”
The Rangers (13-12-2) were utterly lifeless out of the gate. They skated as if they were still digesting their Thanksgiving dinner, leaving key areas of the ice open and making poor decisions with the puck on the rare occasions they got to it. Tampa Bay set up shop in the offensive zone and got comfortable there for the entire afternoon, with New York offering little pushback. It led to a dominant first period, with the Lightning earning each of the game’s first nine shots on goal and 17 of the first 18 attempts.
“We got out-competed from the drop of the puck,” coach Mike Sullivan said.
Tampa finished with 35 shots while New York mustered only 13, marking its lowest total of the season. The Lightning also held a distinct 16-4 advantage in high-danger scoring chances at five-on-five, according to Natural Stat Trick.
Seven of those HD chances came in the opening 20 minutes, which could have easily resulted in a multi-goal lead if not for Igor Shesterkin. Sullivan opted to start his No. 1 goalie on back-to-back days for the first time this season, but it wasn’t enough to inspire better play from his teammates. Shesterkin bailed them out multiple times in the opening 10 minutes, but the Rangers eventually got what they deserved when an off-target shot from Lightning forward Brandon Hagel redirected in off defenseman Carson Soucy’s skate at the 10:53 mark.
Brandon Hagel gets things started for the @TBLightning on #NHLNShowcase Saturday! pic.twitter.com/SsuOwvmo1w
— NHL Media (@NHLMedia) November 29, 2025
That was the only goal of a lopsided first period, providing a sliver of hope that the Rangers could regroup and rally at intermission. But not much changed in the second, with Tampa generating another seven HD chances in the middle period. Hagel scored his second goal of the game after New York got caught sleeping at the 8:57 mark — first on an ill-advised dump-in from Alexis Lafrenière that abruptly ended a three-on-two rush and handed possession right back to the Lightning, then on the ensuing counter in which no one wearing blue bothered to hustle back and defend.
“I didn’t think we had dump it,” Sullivan said. “I thought we should have challenged off the rush there. We’re trying to encourage Laf to challenge people, hang onto pucks, go wide, force that guy to have to defend you. … I felt like tonight there was a fair amount of times we just gave it back to them when we didn’t have to.”
Miller cut the Rangers’ deficit to 2-1 when an Adam Fox pass went in off his skate late in the second period, but it never felt like they had a comeback in them. Nick Paul made sure of it by redirecting a feed from Nikita Kucherov to make it 3-1 Lightning 2:02 into the third before Jake Guentzel sealed the win with an empty-netter.
It was the ultimate buzzkill following a three-game winning streak, which saw New York climb its way out of the Metro Division basement, only to stumble right back into it.
“There’s got to be a willingness and a want to be first to pucks, to embrace physicality,” Sullivan said. “We knew the type of game it was going to be. That team, they’ve got hard skill, they compete and they skate. That was the kind of game that it was going to be.
“I don’t think we had the wherewithal to match their intensity. I just felt like we lost puck battles all over the rink, and it’s hard to establish any sort of game that you want to play if you don’t win puck battles.”
Making matters worse is the uncertainty surrounding Fox, who exited in pain after Hagel crunched his left arm into the boards on a clean hit with 12:57 to play and did not return. Sullivan labeled it an upper-body injury and said the 27-year-old was still being evaluated, but an absence of any kind would be damning. There’s an argument that no Ranger would be harder to replace. It’s a two-man debate between Fox and Shesterkin, with the former representing their only point-producing defenseman — he’s racked up 10 assists during his current six-game point streak — and team MVP up to this point.
“He’s a Norris (Trophy) defenseman,” said center Mika Zibanejad in an obvious-but-telling response.
Here’s the play where Fox got hurt. Looks like that left arm took the brunt of it. He did not return. #NYR pic.twitter.com/ZHu0ykVH9z
— Vince Z. Mercogliano (@vzmercogliano) November 29, 2025
The built-in excuse is that the Rangers are tied for most games played (27) by any NHL team this season, with nine coming in the last 15 days. It’s been a grueling schedule that included 16 of their first 26 games on the road, but they’re far from the only team dealing with heavy legs. The Lightning also played three times in the last four days.
Meanwhile, New York entered as close to full strength as it’s been since the beginning of the season. Defenseman Will Borgen returned to the lineup Saturday after missing the previous five games due to an upper-body injury, while Tampa was playing without three of its top-four D — Erik Černák, Victor Hedman and Ryan McDonagh — plus No. 1 center Brayden Point.
You wouldn’t have known it watching this one. The Rangers looked flat, and worse, disengaged.
“I’ve talked about it a few times, but this game’s majority mental,” Rangers center Vincent Trocheck said. “It’s up to you to kind of fight off the negativity whenever there’s something creeping into your mind.”
The hard truth is that the Rangers are decidedly mid, as the kids say today. They’re always a threat to steal a game against quality opponents thanks to Shesterkin, but it’s been a struggle to consistently hang with the league’s best. Consider that they’ve won only five of 14 games against teams that entered Saturday in playoff position, with none of those victories coming at MSG. Then consider that Saturday started a stretch of eight home games in their next 11, with the powerful Dallas Stars next up to visit the Garden on Tuesday.
Because of New York’s flawed roster, which has been exposed for its lack of playmaking and diminished team speed, it can ill afford to compound those issues by getting outworked. That became an unfortunate trademark of the 2024-25 Rangers, and while it’s been generally better under Sullivan, there have been a handful of concerning efforts just over a quarter of the way into the new season. They’ve called themselves out on those occasions, but this is an actions-speak-louder-than-words situation.
These Rangers aren’t skilled enough to get by on talent alone — and if they don’t bring the necessary level of determination, the potential lingers for ugly afternoons like this.
“That’s something obviously that I’ll discuss with my coaching staff moving forward,” Sullivan said. “Obviously, our expectation is higher. I don’t think the players, by any stretch, have intentions of getting out-competed. Obviously, we’ve got to find a way to take more pride in that, and that’s something that we’ve got to work through as a group.”