from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Regarding the Rangers, still first in the Metro but probably far from first in your heart these days.

1. If the combination of three goals on 83 shots strikes a chord in your memory palace, it should, for that represented Rick Nash’s stat line for the 2015 playoffs in which Big 61’s 3.6 shooting percentage was the lowest in NHL postseason history for forwards with at least 80 shots on net.

The circumstances are not as urgent and the consequences are hardly as dire, but nine years later, Alexis Lafreniere entered Tuesday’s match in San Jose having scored three goals on 83 shots over his previous 29 games before exiting the 3-2 overtime defeat with three goals on 84 shots in his previous 30 contests.

This is not an attempt to turn Lafreniere into a scapegoat for the Rangers’ 3-5-2, 5-7-2 and 11-11-2 descents into mediocrity and worse. But when a team gets next to no production from a bottom-six that has been compromised since Filip Chytil left the lineup on Nov. 2, it is incumbent upon his top-six to cash in its opportunities.

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