They are not in the last month. Pens have a positive expected goals rate while Rangers are in the negative
I don’t think folks are watching the Rangers play. They have been bad bad and it’s been quite obvious
Also people are very much underestimating the toxicity around the team and how that impacts performance. For them to turn things around they need to build some kind of positive vibe, and that’s not something you can just flip on at will in these circumstances. Look at the 2010-11 devils…they were an utter embarrassment of a team under John Maclean and with Langs’ captaincy turning sour. It wasn’t until Lemaire was brought in and Langs shipped out that they got a spark to go on a run.
The Rangers are in a much worse position than that because the source of their issues is the GM and a clear conflict between vets who continue to get rewarded with ice time despite not delivering and youngsters like Kakko who are getting buried in the lineup or even scratched despite not being the team’s biggest issue. They also don’t have a strong roster outside of Shesterkin and Panarin. They were always a paper tiger as for as competing for a cup goes, but now their roster really is crap, look at that friggin blue line.
This is an ugly ugly situation they have going on…and I’m loving it lol