NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Just when you think the Rangers have hit rock bottom, the team proves that new depths can always be reached.
The Blueshirts suffered their second loss to a last-place club in just over a week Tuesday night at Bridgestone Arena, where they were shut out the first time this season in a 2-0 loss to the basement-dwelling Predators after dropping one against the then-32nd-ranked Blackhawks on Dec. 9.
“It shouldn’t be hard to keep our focus right now,” Ryan Lindgren said. “We should be driven to get out of this. We should be doing whatever it takes every single game to get out of this. Battling like hell to get out of it. You saw that tonight, I thought we battled, but it’s just not going our way right now. It’s our job to just keep getting back to work and doing what we can.”
Prior to Tuesday’s win, the Predators had not only lost nine of their past 10, but they are still the only remaining NHL team that hadn’t reached double digits in the victory column yet.
Nashville is on a very short list of teams in worse shape than the Rangers right now, and yet, it was the same old, same old for a Blueshirts team that can’t seem to get up for any game right now.
This defeat officially tipped the Rangers into a losing record at 15-15-1, which is a mark that is generous for the club’s body of work this season.
“We’re in the business of winning,” head coach Peter Laviolette said. “So when you’re not winning, it’s frustrating. Everybody’s irritated by the whole thing. We’ve got to find a way out, and we’ve got to do it quick.”
The discontent in the Rangers locker room has been playing out on the ice this season.
Tuesday was just another instance, after Kaapo Kakko unleashed his frustration with serving as a healthy scratch in the previous game in St. Louis. The 23-year-old Finn essentially expressed that he didn’t believe he deserved to be the odd man out, noting that it’s easier to scratch a young guy like him rather than a struggling veteran.
Kakko could become the second disgruntled player to be traded from the Rangers this season, after captain Jacob Trouba was shipped out despite the captain blocking a trade in the offseason for family reasons.
Laviolette has actively tried to divide the ice time up differently, but the second-year Rangers bench boss has not gotten the results he’s looking for.
A little over halfway through December, Laviolette is already fielding questions about his job security.
The 60-year-old veteran coach of 1,543 NHL games did not flinch at the inquiry. It is something that has to be asked amid all the conversation surrounding what the organization is going to do, but there is no indication that changes are being contemplated behind the bench or in management.
“Those are things that I can’t control,” he said. “I’ve been in this a long time.”
The Rangers came out hunting pucks, but their pursuit diminished as the first period wore on.
Chad Ruhwedel’s keep-in attempt then deflected off Jonathan Marchessault to spring his line — with Steven Stamkos and Filip Forsberg — for a rush opportunity before he finished a pretty passing sequence to take a 1-0 lead.
From there, the free-for-all that has been the middle of the Rangers zone continued.
Outshooting the Rangers 14-8 in the second period, the Predators also benefited from some strong goaltending from Juuse Saros, who recorded his third shutout of the season with 25 saves on 25 shots.
Adam Wilsby later gave Nashville some insurance with eight minutes left in regulation, when the Predators forward scored his first NHL goal from the high slot to double the home team’s score.
The Rangers have been running out of answers as their season slips further and further away.
Losses to two of the worst teams in the NHL will just be a footnote to this 2024-25 campaign if it continues to go further off the rails.
The only direction for the Rangers to go is up, but it’s just a matter of when they’ll start on that trajectory.
