Seven Game Temp Check: Rangers Wasted Season Continues Without Panarin
Seven games later, the Rangers are deeper in the basement, the “temperature” is at an all-time low, and the J.T. Miller questions aren’t going away in this latest Temp Check.
With the Olympic break taking up most of February, we’re bringing part six of the Ten Game Temp Check series a bit earlier—a Seven Game Temp Check.
We last checked in on this team after a 2-6-2 stretch. At this time, the Rangers were last in the Metropolitan Divison, the Eastern Conference, and 27th in the league overall. Seven games later, things are still not looking good as they’ve won just one of their last seven and remain at the bottom of the Eastern Conference. They now rank 30th in the overall league standings and, according to Tankathon, are projected to land the third overall pick in the 2026 NHL Draft. As always, here’s the side-by-side.
@ Los Angeles—L 4-3 Loss @ Los Angeles
@ San Jose—L 3-1 Loss @ San Jose
V Boston—L 4-3 OT Win V. Boston
@ NY Islanders—L 5-2 Loss @ NY Islanders
V. NY Islanders—W 2-1 Loss V. NY Islanders
@ Pittsburgh—L 6-5 Loss @ Pittsburgh
V. Carolina—L 2-0 Loss V. Carolina
If there was still any doubt, the season is over—at least in regards to the Rangers chances of sniffing the playoff picture. I mentioned in the last part of the series that the Rangers have been playing some of their most dreadful hockey, yet things somehow continue to get worse. The team simply isn’t good enough, but making matters worse is a complete lack of any semblance of interest in playing on a nightly basis, let alone visible effort or tenacity.
What Went Well
I generally try to be an optimistic guy, but I'm genuinely don't have a single thing to write about here.
What Went Wrong
I can't stress this enough: I am a fan first and foremost. I love the New York Rangers and the game of hockey more than most things. I get no joy whatsoever from complaining about this team or picking on individual players, so I hope it's understood that I'm not trying to single out certain guys when I get into these types of topics.
That said, let's get the J.T. Miller conversation over with.
When they reacquired him this time last year, I was fine with it. They got out of the Filip Chytil business, which was sad but smart. They sold high on a fifth round draft pick in Victor Mancini, who has a ceiling of a bottom pairing defenseman, and they gave up draft capital to try and keep the team competitive. We'll come back to that in a second, but all things considered, the trade made sense at the time.
I know he's injured, and I know things aren't solely his fault. But when you're the captain of the New York Rangers, a ton of the attention is going to be on you. And from everything we've seen in the last calendar year, it's only a matter of time before we're referring to this trade as a disaster, if you aren't already.
This is a guy the fans were told drags his team into the fight. This is a guy that led the "No BS" mantra in training camp, indicating that lack of effort would not be the issue that it was last season. This is a guy who is regarded as such an important teammate and leader that the general manager of the U.S. Olympic team left the top American goalscorer off the roster because Miller can fill a role and matches the culture of the team's identity. J.T. Miller has shown us none of these things since things have begun to sour with this Rangers team. There's a lot that's going wrong beyond him but when everything is going wrong, it falls on leadership and that starts and ends with him.
