Another tough night for the Rangers as the Flames rolled into MSG and stole a 2-1 win. Artemi Panarin got things started early, extending his 10-game point streak with a slick wrister off a feed from Urho Vaakanainen. But that was about it for the good news. Nazem Kadri punched in a rebound to tie it, and Long Island native Matt Coronato buried a power-play goal to put Calgary ahead. The second period? Rough—just three shots on goal, none in the last 11 minutes.
Chris Kreider had a golden chance on the third, but Dan Vladar shut the door. Igor Shesterkin kept the Rangers in it with a huge pad save on Jonathan Huberdeau, but the offense never found its rhythm. With Montreal winning, the New York Rangers slipped back in the wild-card race, leaving fans frustrated. But Coach Laviolette isn’t panicking—he’s backing his squad, knowing they’ll bounce back.
The New York Rangers shared a post-game video on YouTube, and naturally, all eyes were on Peter Laviolette as he fielded questions about the team’s struggles. A journalist pointed out the trend—turnovers, trouble advancing the puck, and games where things just don’t seem to click. “Is there a randomness? I mean, it seems like there’s been several games where they fall into the trap of struggling to advance the puck… turnovers showed up a lot last night.” Maybe it’s fatigue? Maybe just bad luck?
Laviolette didn’t sugarcoat it. “Yeah, I mean, if you had a crystal ball and you knew in advance, you certainly would hit that even harder.” He acknowledged the frustration but was quick to defend his squad, emphasizing that despite the tough breaks, “we talk about the things that make us successful, and I think we played a better brand of hockey for the last four games with a couple of disappointing results ‘cause it didn’t go our way.”
New York Rangers’ coach addresses team’s mistakes!
A few days ago, New York Rangers’ Adam Fantilli basically turned Madison Square Garden into his own personal highlight reel, lighting up the scoreboard with his second career hat trick as the Blue Jackets steamrolled their way to a 7-3 win. The Rangers had their moments—Artemi Panarin, Braden Schneider, and Chris Kreider tried to breathe some life into the fight, even pulling off two short-handed goals in a blink. But once Columbus hit their stride, it was game over.
And let’s just say Peter Laviolette wasn’t exactly in the mood for sugarcoating things after that one. Postgame, he laid it all out, shaking his head at the defensive disasters that left their goalie stranded. “Tonight it was, and like I said, when it did break down, it was bad. There were guys right in front of Quick with no support and no help.” And it wasn’t just bad luck—it was a whole storm of missteps. “One of them goes off of a skate, we drop, a guy falls in the corner, we’re broken stick coming back on the two-on-one, two-on-two.” Just one of those nights where if something could go wrong, it did, and it hurt.
Execution? A mess. Zone exits? Nonexistent. Laviolette wasn’t shy about calling it out. “I don’t think the execution was very good on us coming out of the zone. I thought we just kind of threw it away. That led to offense, that led to goals as well.” Instead of playing smart, controlled hockey, the Rangers were basically handing out prime scoring chances like party favors. And the coach made it crystal clear—this kind of play? Not gonna cut it. “We weren’t clean. We have to be cleaner than that coming out of our zone. It led to chances and goals against.” If they want to flip the script, they better do it fast, because in this league, mistakes like these don’t just sting—they flat-out cost you games.
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