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Three games and three losses for the New York Rangers on their most recent road trip.
On Saturday night, the Rangers capped off their three-game road trip with a 3-2 loss to the Utah Mammoth, marking their fourth consecutive loss.
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J.T. Miller suffered an upper-body injury in the Rangers’ previous game against the Colorado Avalanche, and his presence was clearly missed.
Miller’s absence elevated Jonny Brodzinski into a top-six role on a line with Mika Zibanejad and Will Cuylle, while Sullivan put Artemi Panarin, Vincent Trocheck, and Alexis Lafrenière back on a line together.
When Vincent Trocheck missed time with an injury, the lineup’s overall offensive depth took a major hit, and it was no different without Miler.
The Rangers struggled to generate consistent scoring chances and maintain quality offensive-zone time.
Mike Sullivan feels that Miller’s absence should not be used as an excuse for their struggles over the course of the night.
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“It’s going to provide opportunities for others to step up and make an impact,” Sullivan said of the fallout from Miller’s injury. “Every team goes through it, we’re not the only ones. We’ve got to find a way to bring more of a collective effort.”
New York has been outshot in all three of their games on this road trip and has notably failed to even record more than 22 shots.
Once again, the Rangers are going through an offensive rut as the frustrations continue to mount.
“I feel like we’re disconnected. I think we’re too far away from each other,” Zibanejad said. “It’s a lot of one-and-dones in the O-zone, try to get on the forecheck, it’s one guy, one guy, one guy. We don’t come up with five together and I just feel like we’re a bit late everywhere.”
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The Mammoth are known to play a fast and up-tempo game, which the Rangers simply couldn’t keep up with.
J.T. Miller Day-To-Day With Upper-Body Injury Suffered Against Avalanche
This loss for the Blueshirts stems from an overall lack of intensity, shown by all of the high danger chances they were giving up and struggles to maintain consistent offensive pressure.
“I didn’t think, for whatever reason, we had the juice, the energy. If you don’t bring a certain amount of energy to the game, it’s hard,” Sullivan said. “I just didn’t think we won a whole lot of foot races. I didn’t think we won a lot of puck battles. When you don’t win foot races or puck battles, you don’t tend to have the puck. I felt like that was the case for a lot of the night.”
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Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, and the Rangers find themselves at the bottom of the Metropolitan Division standings. It’s not a good position to be in 23 games into the season.
The Rangers will have an opportunity to flip the switch on Monday night when they face off against the St. Louis Blues.
