WASHINGTON – The Rangers stopped correcting their mistakes.
After seven games by which they scored a minimum of 4 goals in each of those victories, the Rangers will go into Saturday afternoon’s game within the Spiral Capitals, losing three in a row (0-2-1), scoring a complete of 4 goals by slippage.
Because of this, there’s a direct must refocus on details that will have been missed throughout the offensive frenzy. Lost 4-1 in a row, Rangers have only dropped 3 points in a row in regulation time this season. It was within the last week of November.
“We were a bit too loose,” said Ryan Lindgren, certainly one of the few regulars who attended the optional training session on the Capitals training facility in Arlington, Virginia on Friday. and we quit too many easy opportunities.
“We’ve got to get to the best place and eliminate them. The purpose is to skate to get to the best areas. “
It is also about making the best decisions with the puck. While management is busy managing rosters, players must re-engage with intelligent puck management. There have been some bad decisions on Thursday within the 4-1 loss to the Red Wings.
“We won’t keep conceding three or 4 goals a game and expect to win,” said head coach Gerard Gallant. “You get their attention a bit, you play a bit higher in defense and also you make higher decisions.
“There have been some bad decisions [Thursday]. There have been a couple of goals in the frenzy that we didn’t like and a few goals in Zone D. We played a fairly good hockey game but on all their goals we made bad mistakes, individual mistakes that cost a couple of goals.
“So we had somewhat meeting and showed some videos, attempting to improve them.”
Rangers have scored three five-for-five goals of their last three games, with Vincent Trocheck scoring a brace and Vladimir Tarasenko scoring a second. The Blueshirts have one game goal in the combo on eight occasions, that owned by Alexis Lafreniere (the primary PPG of his NHL profession).
In seven of their last 12 matches, they’d only two man-ups or less.
The Capitals lost six in a row in regulation, the streak was broken by losses to twenty ninth overall in San Jose and thirty first overall in Anaheim. Washington, which has not won a playoff round since winning the Stanley Cup in 2018, fell to seventh within the wildcard race by percentage and would wish to pass five clubs to secure a postseason spot.
The Capitals are only two points away from second place with a wild card, however the 4 clubs they would wish to overtake have three or 4 games in hand.
The Rangers take on the Kings on the Garden on Sunday night to wrap up the stretch where they’ll play three matches in 4 nights and 7 in 12. There shall be one other 3v4 round next Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday before a four-day break.