NEW YORK — It was brief and it was tense. Peter Laviolette spent less than a minute answering questions about his Rangers team’s no-show for much of Friday’s 3-2 loss to the Sidney Crosby-less/Evgeni Malkin-less Penguins, a team that even with those two legends is headed the wrong way in the Eastern Conference standings.
“That’s unacceptable,” was the most detailed description Laviolette gave of his team’s effort, particularly in a second period where the Penguins scored three times and the Rangers won maybe two or three puck battles.
The Penguins ramped their game up without Nos. 87 and 71. The Rangers, with a full roster, looked like they were ready to ramp up to Turks and Caicos for a few days when the 4 Nations break hits following Saturday’s game in Columbus.
“It’s inexcusable,” said Vincent Trocheck, who had the opening goal and then an assist on Adam Fox’s second-period tally. “We know where we’re at in the standings, we know we need every point. With two games left before (the) break, you can’t have what just happened.”
So what happened, exactly? Let’s break it down a bit.
Not enough urgency late, or early
The Rangers got their only two power plays of the game in the final 6:15 while down a goal and managed one shot on goal between the power plays, one of which was a full six-on-four. The Penguins were throwing themselves in front of everything — Noel Acciari had three blocks on the six-on-four — but the Rangers power play, 7 for 21 over the prior eight games, was hunting for perfection, not chaos.
“You’re trying to get looks,” said Fox, who had four shots on net and just his second goal on a goalie this season, a fairly aggressive night for him on offense. “You’re trying to deliver pucks with the extra attacker, I had a look there. They got in front of it. You want to be able to come through there, reward yourself for being able to get a power play late.”
With Crosby joining Malkin on the sidelines for the Penguins, the first time those two have missed the same game since November 2021, the Rangers surely knew it wouldn’t be an up-and-down, trading-chances style of game. And when Trocheck scored off a ghastly giveaway from Erik Karlsson 8:31 in, maybe the Rangers thought they would walk off with it.
But they were slow to pucks, slow to react and just slow in general.
Defending the rush bites again
The Penguins scored twice off the rush, once in transition after a bad Matt Rempe turnover and once on a simple-looking three-on-four Penguins rush where Will Borgen and Alexis Lafrenière made mistakes.
Rempe had a rough few shifts mixed in over the first 40 minutes, the roughest coming when he tried a cross-ice pass in the neutral zone for Jimmy Vesey that Karlsson stepped up on. The Penguins had numbers coming back and Blake Lizotte beat Igor Shesterkin from a tight angle to make it 1-1. Rempe was skipped a few times in the third but did get a couple of shifts with a fourth line that did some good work on the forecheck. It was likely the lack of anything special from the rest of the forwards that brought Rempe back into the rotation.
The Penguins’ second tying goal should have been easy to defend. Borgen slid over right next to K’Andre Miller to take Anthony Beauvillier making a middle drive, leaving space for Rickard Rakell to take Bryan Rust’s pass. Lafrenière, at the end of a 1:14 shift — longer than normal but not exactly taxing — coasted and let Rakell get a step on him.
“We needed to pick up on the backcheck and we didn’t,” Laviolette said before excusing himself from the postgame news conference.
25 goals this season for Raks.
As @JG_PxP would say, “THIS DUDE IS ON FIRE!” 🔥 pic.twitter.com/3smodIBrN5
— Pittsburgh Penguins (@penguins) February 8, 2025
Now what?
This Jekyll-and-Hyde team has now lost four of six after an 8-1-3 run, which of course followed a 4-15-0 debacle, which followed a 12-4-1 start. There is still runway to make a playoff push but they have trailed through 40 minutes in six straight games — not the play of a team that thinks it can get into the postseason, even if it rallied against the Golden Knights and Bruins in the previous two games.
“They outworked us for 40 minutes,” J.T. Miller said. “It’s hard to come back every time. Good news is we get to play again tomorrow. We should expect our best effort.”
Miller’s not been here for very long, so maybe he’s not that aware of what’s transpired throughout this season. But if the Rangers don’t bring their best effort in Columbus on Saturday, general manager Chris Drury’s desire to remake this roster could become a lot stronger and sharper with two weeks off and a month to go until the trade deadline.
You can be sure Drury is gauging the market on at least his pending UFAs: Ryan Lindgren, Reilly Smith and Vesey. There are candidates for promotion waiting in the wings — a season like this one begs for the opportunity to see Brennan Othmann in some NHL games, a return for Brett Berard now that he’s healthy after missing four games with Hartford and maybe a look at future bottom-six spark plug Adam Sykora, who’s having a decent second season in the AHL.
The Rangers sit a somewhat manageable five points back of the second wild-card spot with 28 games to go. There’s a reason to think they could keep most or all of their own guys to try and get into the playoffs, where Shesterkin could get hot and the top guys could rekindle their recent playoff magic.
Could … if … maybe. Not a lot to go on. Drury has gotten admirable results with his drastic reshaping of the roster, if perhaps he’s used questionable methods to get there. Why stop now? Especially if his team is still so maddeningly inconsistent.
(Photo: Brad Penner / Imagn Images)
