PITTSBURGH — The cliché “a win is a win” almost always applies, but it doesn’t feel right for the Rangers.
Not for a team that gave up eight goals in an embarrassing loss on the first night of a back-to-back slate, only to follow it up with a slow-starting, empty-net-abetted 5-3 win over the Penguins that they were more than lucky to come away with after getting outshot 39-16 Sunday evening at PPG Paints Arena.
A 60-minute inspired and hard-fought defeat may have even been more preferable.
The cliché “beggars can’t be choosers,” on the other hand, certainly does apply to this Blueshirts team.
Splitting their first two games after the 4 Nations Face-Off break, 1-1, should hardly matter to the Rangers hierarchy that watched the team get destroyed in Buffalo and barely escape Pittsburgh with a win over the last-place club in the Metropolitan Division.
These first games out of the break were always going to be about assessing where the Rangers are truly at and preparing for the trade deadline.
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Almost nothing about the Rangers’ first two performances, however, should incite president and general manager Chris Drury to make moves in the name of winning the Stanley Cup this season.
The Rangers were fortunate to have a 1-1 tie after the first period, in which the visitors were limited to just five shots on goal.
The fact that they didn’t record a single shot on goal in the middle frame until there were less than five minutes left only magnified the Rangers’ lack of energy and execution.
Pittsburgh had a 14-0 edge in shots on goal in the second period at one point, but the Rangers were still somehow the only team to notch a goal. J.T. Miller gave the Blueshirts a 2-1 lead with a wrister off the rush in a sequence the Penguins were sure to be stunned by.
A couple goals from Ryan Shea through roughly the first 3 ½ minutes of the third period allowed the Penguins to regain their lead.
Jimmy Vesey, back in the lineup after serving as a healthy scratch in Buffalo on Saturday, tied it up for the Rangers less than a minute after Pittsburgh’s go-ahead goal. It led to a Rangers push, which culminated in Adam Fox’s game-winner from between the circles in transition.
There wasn’t anything particularly inspiring about the Rangers’ game to start Sunday’s contest, even though they were skated right out of Buffalo the night before. Any expectations of added motivation were quickly reduced.
The same could be said for the Penguins, who also gave up eight goals the game before to the Capitals.
Pittsburgh still managed to strike first at the 12:53 mark of the first period, when Evgeni Malkin poked a loose puck in as the Rangers around him scrambled. There wasn’t even much defensive moment from the Rangers on the sequence, but they looked discombobulated all the same.
Will Cuylle tied it up with a goal off the rush with less than a minute left in the period, his second power-play score of the season, to keep the Rangers competitive.
