Fifteen days ago, the Chicago Blackhawks embarrassed the Rangers in New York with a 5-2 loss that resulted in Jacob Trouba losing whatever cool he had left at the time, throwing his helmet to the boards and yelling at the bench for their ineffectiveness in the game.
Seems like an epoch ago for sure.
The Rangers had lost the game previous to the Hawks loss, that was a 3-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators in overtime. So the frustration was building.
Since that loss to Chicago, the Rangers have reeled off seven straight win, including a 7-1 thrashing of the Blackhawks on Sunday, in Chicago.
Seven different skaters had goals in the win.
Coincidentally, the Blackhawks have lost all seven of their contests since Dec. 3.
“I don’t know, it’s hard to say,” Chicago’s Jonathan Toews said. “There’s moments where we played good hockey, and then we make one mistake and it ends up in the back of our net. And right now, those moments seem to sting more than they usually do, and it feels like we’re putting this weight on our shoulders where when things go wrong, they go really wrong, and it keeps snowballing in the wrong direction for us and we’re mentally having a difficult time recovering as a team.
“It’s hard to pinpoint one thing when there’s a lot of breakdowns, a lot of odd-man rushes, especially early on, and they’re capitalizing on those chances, and then it’s hard to recover from that, and you look up at the scoreboard and it’s 3-0, 4-1, 5-1, whatever it is in your own building. It’s not a good feeling, but give this group credit. Even though we’ve had a tough go, I think there’s still that commitment to each other and to figuring this out to getting that good feeling in this room again.”
It appears no manner or number of closed door sessions will fix what is ailing the Blackhawks these days.
On Sunday, it went from bad to worse in a hurry; the Rangers struck for three goals in the opening frame to take the air out of the building.
Filip Chytil got the offense in gear for the Rangers in then first period to give them a 1-0 lead, the goal came at 13:04.
“We’re playing, finding ways to win hockey games,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “We’re just playing as a group, and it’s four lines and six [defensemen] on the goals. Everyone’s playing good, solid hockey. You get on a little roll and things happen good. We weren’t getting much puck luck the first part of the season, now we’re getting a lot more of it.”
Artemi Panarin pushed the lead to 2-0 at 16:55, and basically the rout was on.
Kaapo Kakko hit for his eighth of the campaign on a tic-tac-toe passing effort from Alexis Lafreniere and Chytil for a 3-0 lead with less than a minute left in the first period.
Chicago got on the board with 95 seconds gone in the second period when Philipp Kurashev hit for an unassisted marker to make it 3-1.
For much of the season, that goal might have signaled a slump in the Rangers’ efforts.
Not on Sunday, and with the help of a dejected Blackhawks lineup, the Rangers scored twice in the
Trouba hit for a slap shot goal midway through the frame from the right circle on a drop pass from Panarin for a 4-1 lad.
“I think going back to our last game in Philly (a 6-3 victory on Saturday), where we kind of went back and forth, gave up some goals, we kind of stuck with it and just kept playing our game,” Trouba said. “I don’t think we let the momentum affect us either way, good or bad. Same thing tonight. It was good.”
Vincent Trocheck then deflected a shot/pass from Adam Fox on the left side of the crease, through his legs and inside the post for a 5-1 advantage with 16 seconds left in the period, the goal came off the power play.
The third period was an exercise in getting the game over and done and get home for the Blackhawks.
The Rangers kept their skates on the pedal though and avoided any criticism of a sag.
New York’s Vitali Kravtsov scored off a breakaway at 8:56 to make it 6-1 to the Rangers. Panarin released him on the breakaway with a pass up the middle from the Rangers zone.
“That was ugly, for sure,” Blackhawks coach Luke Richardson said. “I don’t know how to sum it up. I thought, again, we had a really good first period, start to the first period, and then somehow they find a way to score a goal. I think at the end of the first period, we gave up a few odd-man rushes, a couple bad decisions, and that led to that.
“We played so hard and we can’t find the back of the net. When that happens, then it seems we can’t reset and go back to the way we were playing. It goes 2-0, 3-0. It’s happened a few times. I think we have to find a way to have more fight and pushback
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and not look exhausted, feel exhausted, whether it’s mentally or physically. We just have to find a way to get out of it.”
The Rangers’ Jonny Brodzinski deflected another shot from the point at 13:37 for the 7-1 final.
Arvid Soderblom made 19 saves in the loss, and was left unprotected and prone throughout the night.
He was bowled over on the Kurashev goal by a trailing Chicago defenseman.
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