The New York Rangers were defeated 6-1 at Madison Square Garden by the Buffalo Sabers on Thursday night.
Prior to this matchup, the Rangers had not played until Sunday afternoon and the rust was clearly showing.
The Sabers set the tone by scoring less than 30 seconds into the contest.
From the start, the Rangers played a slow game and just didn’t come in with any sense of urgency.
The real problem came in the second period, when the Sabers scored three goals in a two-minute span.
This prompted Peter Laviolette to pull Igor Shesterkin, who allowed five goals on just 12 total shots.
Throughout the beginning of the season, the Rangers have relied on Shesterkin to be Superman and he finally caught up with them.
“We’ve been too beleaguered, we’ve trusted our goalie too much,” Laviolette said.
It was just a poor performance by Rangers and there’s no other way to put it.
It’s a game where they simply weren’t themselves and the players in the locker room were very aware of that fact.
“As a group tonight, we definitely weren’t good enough.” Jacob Trouba said. “We will go back and look at it, learn the lessons and move on.
The Rangers will travel to Detroit to take on the Red Wings on Saturday night.