Rangers still searching for fix to ‘concerning’ back-to-back trend after latest loss

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — The Rangers have yet to win the second game of a back-to-back this season.

Falling to the Predators 2-1 Sunday night at Bridgestone Arena, the Blueshirts fell to 0-6-1 in the second contest of back-to-back slates so far this season.

“It’s concerning,” Vincent Trocheck said. “Everybody does it. Everybody has back-to-backs. It’s tiring, but everybody does it. Someone’s going to come out a winner. They played yesterday, and they just played harder than us. We got to be able to be professional, prepare for the game, and we have to be better. We have to try harder. We have to have more pride in ourselves.”

Both the Rangers and the Predators were coming off a game Saturday.

While the Rangers played a matinee, beating the Flyers 5-4 in a shootout, Nashville topped the Maple Leafs 5-3 that night.

Vincent Trocheck skates with the puck during the Rangers’ Dec. 21 loss to the Predators. Imagn Images

The Rangers have six more sets of back-to-back games remaining in the 2025-26 campaign.

“For me, that’s a situation, I think, when I’m talking about managing the game right,” head coach Mike Sullivan said. “You got to be able to win with your B game. If you don’t have your A game. The way you do that is you don’t beat yourself. You force teams to have to make good plays to beat you. You defend hard, you manage the puck, you make them play goal line to goal line. You watch your shift lengths. You change smart. You don’t take offensive zone penalties. I just don’t think we did that in any aspect of it.”

Brennan Othmann has had to alter his game at the NHL level to try to fit into the Rangers lineup.

A top six skater a majority of his hockey career, the 22-year-old has primarily gotten looks on the Blueshirts’ third and fourth lines since making his NHL debut as part of a three-game cameo in January 2024.

It’s a role Othmann isn’t afraid of, but one, clearly, he still is settling into.

Saturday night against the Flyers, Othmann got a true fourth-line welcome to the NHL when he inadvertently challenged Philadelphia heavyweight Nic Deslauriers.

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“It’s funny, I was telling some of the guys, as soon as he hit me with the first one, and then I saw the tatted knuckles pull away, I knew it was Deslauriers,” he said Sunday morning, providing a perfect visual of one of the NHL’s last remaining enforcers. “You have respect for a lot of those guys, a lot of the heavyweights in the league. We got [Matt Rempe]. But, I just want to stick up for myself. I’ll try not to back down from anybody. But, next time, I’ll probably definitely take a look.”

Othmann admitted he had no idea who hit him from behind at that moment in the second period.

Adam Edstrom, who is on long-term injured reserve with a lower-body injury, missed his 11th straight game Sunday night.

He has yet to resume skating.

“His status is unchanged,” head coach Mike Sullivan said.

Rangers goalie Jonathan Quick stopped 30 of the 31 shots he faced in the loss.