{"id":305180,"date":"2025-11-24T08:07:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-24T08:07:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305180\/"},"modified":"2025-11-24T08:07:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-24T08:07:08","slug":"sinking-rangers-have-no-time-to-waste-with-fixing-offense","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/305180\/","title":{"rendered":"Sinking Rangers have ‘no time to waste’ with fixing offense"},"content":{"rendered":"

Panic is premature. <\/p>\n

But the writing on the ice is impossible to ignore.<\/p>\n

The Rangers return home from a three-game road trip on a season-high four-game losing streak \u2014 most recently allowing Utah to end a four-game skid<\/a> \u2014 and are just one point out of the Eastern Conference cellar. <\/p>\n

On Wednesday, they begin a difficult seven-game stretch, featuring trips to Carolina, Boston and Ottawa, plus visits from Tampa Bay, Dallas, Colorado and Las Vegas.<\/p>\n

But first, the league\u2019s worst home team (1-7-1) must get past the Blues on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s no time to waste,\u201d defenseman Vladislav Gavrikov said after Saturday\u2019s loss to the Mammoth. \u201cGotta just do a quick regroup and be ready for Monday.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"MikaMika Zibanejad skates with the puck during the Rangers\u2019 Nov. 22 loss to the Mammoth. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Even if they are willing, will they be able?<\/p>\n

The Rangers are averaging 2.48 goals per game, which ranks 28th in the NHL and would be the team\u2019s lowest-scoring average in 17 years. <\/p>\n

They have consistently failed to produce quality chances \u2014 getting outshot a combined 137-79 during the losing streak \u2014 and have repeatedly struggled to cash in their limited opportunities, ranking 29th in shot percentage (9.3), which would be the team\u2019s worst mark in seven years.<\/p>\n

While continuing to remain competitive because of the brilliance of Igor Shesterkin and Jonathan Quick, the Rangers (10-11-2) have scored just nine goals in the past five games. <\/p>\n

\"WillWill Cuylle skates with the puck during the Rangers\u2019 loss to the Mammoth on Nov. 22. NHLI via Getty Images<\/p>\n

Just five have come during five-on-five play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got to find a way to start creating chances again,\u201d Mika Zibanejad said. \u201cFor the first part of the season, we were creating chances, just couldn\u2019t finish it off. Right now I feel like we\u2019re not getting as many chances as we would like. We try to address it. We try to talk about it. But we just have to keep going. We have to keep finding a way to get a little bit more \u2018O\u2019-zone time and generate from there. I feel like it\u2019s easier to defend us when we\u2019re one-and-done, and then they basically get the puck and go the other way.\u201d<\/p>\n

If not now, when?<\/p>\n

The Blues (7-9-6) rank 30th in the NHL in goals against (3.64) and 29th in save percentage (.876).<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRead the expert take on the Blueshirts\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSign up for Inside the Rangers, a weekly Sports+ exclusive.\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\t\tThank you\n\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Saturday\u2019s win over the Islanders<\/a> marked St. Louis\u2019 only victory in its past five games.<\/p>\n

\u201cObviously, our five-on-five play hasn\u2019t been the best,\u201d winger Will Cuylle said. \u201cI feel like we\u2019ve got to get more pucks to the net, more guys in the crease and maybe bang in some dirty goals since the pretty ones aren\u2019t really working right now.<\/p>\n

\u201cAny time you have a bad game, you pretty much have to hit the reset button. You can\u2019t be looking to the past. I\u2019m looking forward to the game on Monday and getting the win there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rangers recalled Brett Berard from Hartford, indicating captain J.T. Miller could miss his second straight game\u00a0(upper-body injury) \u2026\u00a0The Rangers also recalled goaltender Dylan Garand, which suggests Jonathan Quick will likely be unavailable after colliding with Utah\u2019s Michael Carcone in Saturday\u2019s loss \u2026\u00a0Defenseman Will Borgen (upper-body injury) was placed on IR (retroactive to Nov. 18) after missing back-to-back games \u2026 Defenseman Scott Morrow was sent down to Hartford after making three appearances with the Rangers.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Panic is premature. But the writing on the ice is impossible to ignore. The Rangers return home from…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[556],"tags":[64,63,3617,575,85],"class_list":["post-305180","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-new-york-rangers","tag-nhl","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}