World news – Rangers who allow distractions break their mental game

With as many close games as the Rangers in this shortened season, multiple losses can be attributed to self-inflicted mistakes.

After the team’s last loss to the Bruins on Friday, a 4-3 loss to the Flyers on Wednesday, the Rangers suffered eight penalties – five of them after the first half. Two were in the middle frame for delaying the game, while another was their second too many men on the ice penalty of the night even though it was called in the last nine seconds of the competition.

When there are no penalties or silly mistakes that hinder the Rangers, it’s a lack of mental hardship. It’s something head coach David Quinn says he’s been playing in the locker room for the past few weeks.

Though there are many reasons this young blueshirts squad wasn’t as mentally sharp as they think they should be Quinn says it’s up to the team to block out the outside noise of this busy season and just play their game.

« I think there could be various reasons why we weren’t mentally sharp the other day, » he said on Friday afternoon. « It’s busy, but it is the responsibility of the players and the coaching staff to make sure that our performance at the level we are playing does not get in the way. » We’ve done a lot of good things the other day, but it looked a bit like last year where we did some good things but really shot each other in the foot too often.

« It’s not that often this year happens so we just have to go back to playing that solidly structured game that we all referred to in Washington and we just haven’t been doing it consistently enough lately.  » There have been too many peaks and valleys in the past week and a half. We had a good one and a bad one, a good one and a bad one. So we have to find that consistency. « 

No question about it, this 2020-21 season was different from any other in several ways. The coronavirus pandemic is still ravaging the country and as the outbreaks continue to spread from team to team, the league has got into the top six New protocols implemented a couple of weeks into the season.

The Rangers were pretty lucky but had a fair share of players added to the COVID-19 protocol list, with Kaapo Kakko and K’Andre Miller being the most recent additions

Then there are the off-ice distractions that the Rangers in particular were exposed to, from a physical altercation between teammates after a defeat that led to Tony DeAngelo’s banishment, to Staremart Artemi Panarin who himself In a political scandal in his home country Russia, the unrest was in abundance for the Rangers.

But every team is dealing with the coronavirus pandemic and has to have its own n Ignore forms of distraction. The Rangers just have to find a way to get back in.

« I think it’s a bit of a mentality, » said defender Adam Fox on Wednesday. “Of course you take as many penalties as we do [Wednesday] and a good team like [the Flyer] will take some chances. We also took advantage of some of our power play chances.

“But in the end you give them so many Class A chances – as if they had three outliers in the third in five minutes – and it’s difficult to play against one win such team when you play so ruthlessly and sloppily. « 

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