Rangers Have No Excuses For Lack Of Effort In Loss To Lightning

The New York Rangers’ 4-1 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday afternoon was beyond concerning in multiple ways.

Going into this matchup, the Rangers were coming off of three consecutive wins, as it appeared the team was beginning to turn a page in terms of buying into Mike Sullivan’s system and playing with the right intentions.

“I think our execution can continue to improve, just getting a little bit sharper with our puck possession game, but I think the guys are buying into the game that we’re trying to play as a team,” Sullivan said after the Rangers’ win over the Bruins on Friday. “We're trying to continue to build our team game. It's essential to win in this league consistently. Obviously, we've gone into some pretty tough buildings. … I think the group is buying in.”

On Saturday afternoon, the Rangers took steps backwards and reverted from a hard-nose brand of hockey to a timid brand of hockey that can best be described as baffling.

From the start of the game, the Lightning outcompeted and outperformed the Rangers in every aspect imaginable.

There was no sense of urgency shown by the Rangers out of the gate and that was indicative from the shot totals, with the Lightning holding a whopping 11-2 in shots on net after the first period.

Two goals from Brandon Hagel, one in the first period and another in the second, put the Rangers in a 2-0 hole.

Despite being severely outplayed, the Rangers only trailed 2-1 going into the final frame thanks to a goal from J.T. Miller.

However, New York came out flat through the final 20 minutes, allowing Tampa Bay to continue dominating the pace of play ,with very little pushback to show for it.

This game was not decided by a matter of skill differential. In fact, some of the Lightning’s best players did not even suit up, including Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Ryan McDonagh.

The Rangers lost due to their lack of effort, and there were no excuses coming out of the locker room.

"It’s unacceptable. We are trying to develop a standard and identity around here and that certainly wasn’t it,” Miller said. “Just will and determination. They were more willful than we were today. They were ready to go into every battle... At no point in that game were we deserving of winning.”

The Blueshirts struggled to generate any sort of offensive pressure all night. They had recorded less than 10 shots on goal by the 6:40 mark of the third period and ended the contest with just a total of 13 shots.

A large portion of the Rangers’ offensive struggles was correlated to their unwillingness to get into puck battles and their inability to establish a strong forecheck.

“There's got to be a willingness and a want to be first the pucks, to embrace physicality,” Sullivan said. “We knew the type of game it was going to be. That team, they've got hard skill, they compete and they skate. I don't think we had the wherewithal to match the intensity. I just felt like we lost, we lost puck battles all over the rink, and it's hard to establish any sort of game that you want to play if you don't win puck battles.”

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To cap it all off, the Rangers lost Adam Fox, who seemed to be labouring his left arm in the third period after taking a hit from Brandon Hagel, which forced him to exit the game.

Sullivan confirmed that Fox is currently being evaluated for an upper-body injury, but his long-term status remains unknown.

When there’s an issue with compete level, that's something fundamentally wrong with a team internally.

We saw this sort of faulty effort from the Rangers for much of the 2024-25 season, and it has seemed to creep back into their game at certain points this year.

“That's something obviously that I'll discuss with my coaching staff moving forward,” Sullivan said about how to address the team’s poor effort. “Obviously, our expectation is higher. I don't think the players, by any stretch, have intentions of getting out-competed. Obviously, we've got to find a way to take more pride in that, and that's something that we've got to work through as a group.”

The Rangers will be back in action on Tuesday night against the Dallas Stars.