What happened on Tuesday night at the Garden was just downright depressing for anyone looking to see the Rangers show some life, to show some sort of pulse that allowed for hope this team is better than its middling record.
Instead, what the Blueshirts did was come out flatfooted and stay that way, getting discarded by the Predators, 4-1, in front of a crowd on Broadway whose voice was too filled with apathy to fill the place with the necessary boos.
To add injury on top of insult — as well as more mounting injuries — captain Ryan Callahan left the game in the first period with what the team called a knee sprain and didn't return. He was hurt when he put a good shoulder-to-shoulder hit on Victor Bartley 9:43 into the game.
Callahan's injury seems even worse considering alternate captain Marc Staal sustained a concussion on Saturday against the Devils, which has him out indefinitely.
The Rangers (15-16-1) have taken just three points in the past five games, and have started their nine-game homestand with three straight losses, only Saturday's against the Devils coming in overtime. And this one certainly should hurt a little bit more, as the Predators (14-14-3) came in having gone 0-4-1 in their previous five.
Any hope of a Blueshirts comeback was squashed early in the third period, when the Predators got a goal from Matt Hendricks to make it 3-1. While the Rangers flailed around in coverage, Hendricks lifted a loose puck over Henrik Lundqvist, who has lost three in a row in concert with his team. Paul Gaustad added an empty-netter for the Predators with 1:06 remaining to finish things off.
The Rangers had a little bit of push back in the second, getting a goal from Rick Nash with 6:38 gone in the period, cutting the lead to 2-1. Nash took a great cross-ice feed from Brad Richards, and with a quick move to his forehand, left goalie Carter Hutton to watch as he lifted it into the net for his sixth of the season. It was just Hutton's second start since Nov. 16.
At his morning press briefing, coach Alain Vigneault got a little testy with, taking an innocuous question about breaking up his team's top line and turning it into a rant about toughness.
"I'm shifting things because we're .500, so I think at .500 I've got some latitude here," Vigneault said, before referencing his addition of two hard-nosed forwards into the lineup, Arron Asham and Derek Dorsett. "Playing two players that bring more of a physical bite to our team, maybe that will make some other players compete at a higher level."
Yet the Rangers came out in the first rather lifeless, playing a mild first 10 minutes before the Predators took over. First came a goal from Nick Spaling with 13:45 gone by, the result of Ryan McDonagh taking a hard fall into the backboards, leaving him unable to keep Spaling from being wide open in front. That was followed just over four minutes later when Rich Clune got his first of the season, beating a backchecking Dominic Moore to the front of the net to give Nashville a 2-0 lead.
"Maybe we'll get there by changing some personnel and adding some more toughness," Vigneault had said. "We're at .500. I'm trying. Anything else?"
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