The ice is back! And the Rangers are off to a rough start.

There were a lot of changes over the offseason and none of them were small. A new coach is arguably the biggest. A lot of young talent makes up the roster now. A rebuild is what it was called last winter and that’s what we’re watching now.

The sports scuttlebutt going into the season was that the Rangers are being completely written off. With no breakout player and a new coach, there’s no expectation of a good season. I think everywhere I read/watched had the Rangers duking it out with the Islanders for the last place in the Metro division. The Islanders lost major talent at the end of the season so they are more or less considered to be a wounded animal this season.

The Rangers have a lot of talent on the team but there is so much in the air that the safe best is mediocre at best. With a 3-3 preseason, I had my hopes that the team will figure out how to gel as a team under the new leadership.

The start of the regular season is 0-3 so it’s basically like last season is still happening. They have moments of greatness and then there are the stupid plays…a mistake here, a bad move there, a squandered effort to get to the puck turns into a disaster. There are times where it looks like a player has stopped paying attention–like they forgot they are playing. It’s amateurish to say the least.

The team can’t rely on Lundquist to save them anymore. In fact, he can’t be expected to play as much as he has in the past. This is where Georgiev needs to step up and after tonight’s loss to the Hurricanes, he’s got a lot of work to do. They hung in there in the first game with Nashville. They should have skated through Buffalo and struggled to score the entire night. Tonight they lost the lead 4 times. 4!

There’s gotta be something that’s missing. The rookies are putting in a ton of effort, it’s just these collapses that keep showing up. These terrible defensive moves that are mindboggling. And that’s from the vet players too. Tonight Zuc gave a goal up because he wasn’t playing his position. He skating in the wrong direction giving the offensive player a wide open shot as he went right by Zuc.

Serious practice is all I can think of at this point. It’s still early though. It’s still early.