DALLAS — It’s getting gloomy around the Rangers, and they know it. The Blueshirts dropped their sixth game in the past seven with a 2-1 loss to the Stars on Monday night at American Airlines Center. They have now lost nine of their past 12 and are 6-11-2 over their past 19, having won just […]
Read MoreDALLAS — A full prognosis won’t be available until Marc Staal sees the Rangers doctors in New York sometime in the next few days, but it has to be at least somewhat encouraging that the veteran defenseman did not suffer another concussion. Staal was diagnosed with a “cervical strain” after being plowed into the corner […]
Read MoreThe Rangers are operating in past present tense, even if they are just three points out of a wild-card berth according to the standings that surely are an optical illusion. For in losing six of their last seven and going 3-9 in their last 12 for the Blueshirts’ least productive dozen-game stretch of hockey since […]
Read MoreNobody is delusional enough to think the Rangers are playing well, not as they have brought themselves to the cusp of a selloff leading to the Feb. 26 trade deadline. But that does not mean coach Alain Vigneault is wrong in saying his team playing better than the recent record indicates — which is tied […]
Read MoreIn the history of the NHL modern era that starts with the 1943-44 introduction of the red line, one coach and one coach only has won the Stanley Cup for the first time in later than his fifth full season behind his team’s bench. That would be Al Arbour, who in 1980 won the first […]
Read MoreTony DeAngelo is not shying away from reality in his second stint with the Rangers. “I gotta pitch in offensively, that’s my main game,” the 22-year-old defenseman said Wednesday following the team’s morning skate. “Obviously I want to play defense first and break up plays and all that kind of stuff. But I gotta get […]
Read MoreIt can always get worse. The Rangers found that out the hard way Wednesday night at the Garden. The hottest team in the NHL met one of the coldest and the result followed the script, with the Bruins laying a 6-1 beatdown on the Rangers. “It was probably one of the worst games of my […]
Read MoreGoodbye, Brendan Smith; hello, Neal Pionk. The Rangers put Smith on waivers Thursday afternoon, sending away the veteran defenseman on his 29th birthday while trying to get out from under his four-year, $17.4 million contract signed this summer. The league’s 30 other teams have until noon Friday to put in a claim on Smith, and […]
Read MoreThere is no more ambiguity in the Rangers intentions. For the first time in a long time, they are tearing it down. “Listen, we have not played well for a while,” general manager Jeff Gorton said in a press conference Thursday alongside president Glen Sather in Westchester, an appearance that came shortly after a signed […]
Read MoreSometimes when big-money contracts blow up, it is not on the team but on the player. In the case of the Rangers and Brendan Smith, it is the latter. There is no joy in piling on Smith, placed on waivers Thursday on his 29th birthday just 54 games into the first season of the four-year, […]
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