The New York Rangers have lost three straight hockey games, are 2-8-0 in their last 10 games, and there’s some rumblings that a coaching change could be on the horizon.
The Rangers are 16-18-1 after 35 games this season, a year that’s included two significant trades, however, GM Chris Drury hasn’t been able to make any moves that are having positive impacts on his hockey club. Could relieving head coach Peter Laviolette be next on Drury’s agenda?
It’s worth noting, the Rangers struggles this season aren’t necessarily tied to one person, or one player. Mika Zibanejad has just six points, and 21 points in 35 games. Chris Kreider has 11 goals and just one assist in 31 games. Their power play efficiency and goals for per game both rank 23rd in the NHL.
On Monday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and Frank Seravalli were back in the booth to chime in on if the Rangers have quit on head coach Peter Laviolette.
Yaremchuk: The Rangers lose again the other day. They now have one win in their last six, they’ve lost three in a row, and when they lost to the Tampa Bay Lightning coming out of the break, a point where the team was saying all the right things.
K’Andre Miller stated the team needed the break to kind of reset, get away from each other. And, they come back and lay flat. And, for the fourth or fifth time in the last month here, as they’ve gone on this 4-12-0 run, I go – that’s the game that gets the coach fired. And then, it doesn’t get the coach fired. What’s going on?
Seravalli: Yes, it’s a 100 games or so, into the Peter Laviolette experience in New York, and it’s sideways, but I don’t think it really has anything to do with him. This team quit on Nov.24 when Chris Drury sent out that memo to the rest of the league. They’ve fallen flat since then.
I mean, Larry Brooks probably said it best in the New York Post in the last few days when he said they’ve quit on themselves, they’ve quit on the city, they’ve quit on the coach, and they’ve quit on the organization. They’ve quit on the GM. They’re lifeless.
I don’t think that comes back to the coach. Of course, he has a small hand in it, and I think some of the decisions have been fascinating, they Kaapo Kakko (scratching) decision was one, then the decision to scratch Zac Jones, who I thought had been playing really well, and an important part of at least what they’re trying to accomplish moving forward….They were in a clear wild-card spot six weeks ago on Nov.24, this spiral has been a death spiral to their season.
For more on Laviolette’s hot seat, and all the very latest from around the NHL, watch the full episode here.