J.T. Miller calls out Rangers’ inexcusable flat starts: ‘It sucks’

CALGARY, Alberta — The Rangers got off to another sluggish start they couldn’t recover from Sunday night at Scotiabank Saddledome.

After falling behind by two goals through the first 9:21 of the game, the Blueshirts could muster only one goal of their own before the Flames hung three more on goalie Igor Shesterkin for a 5-1 victory.

Not only did the Flames more than double the Rangers shot production through the opening 20 minutes (12-5), but the visitors gave up the first goal of the game within the two-minute mark for the second time in as many contests.

“You just can’t be OK with coming out flat,” Rangers captain J.T. Miller said after the Rangers dropped to 3-5-2 on the season. “We’re in no position to come out flat. Be in the right mindset. We’re ready to go. We got outplayed again in the first period. It kind of set the tone. Thought we had a good second period. Couple mistakes hurt us. But other than that, we had a good second period, a good third. We’re obviously not getting a ton of bounces offensively, which is more of a reason.

“There’s no excuses to come up flat. It sucks. This is not fun right now. We need to correct the starts. I think it’s becoming like the trend now, so we need to fix this now on this trip. I mean, it’s a hard road trip, so we got to be ready to go to start the game.”

Rangers head coach Mike Sullivan agreed with Miller’s sentiment, noting that the team had opportunities to kill the play on the half wall and instead were “fishing for pucks.”

“It’s an elemental aspect of playing defense, is to make sure that you control people’s bodies and you play between the puck and the man,” he said. “You’re fishing for pucks, there’s a lot of talented people in this league, so I just think we’ve got to do a better job at that attention to detail right from the drop of the puck.”

Noah Laba registered his first career goal to cut the Flames lead in half in the first period, driving to the net and burying the puck on Calgary netminder Dustin Wolf.

“He brings an energy to him, and he can really skate,” Sullivan said. “He’s got a speed element to his game. I think he creates anxiety. He draws the penalty for example because he’s chasing a defenseman down. That’s the speed element. He scores a nice goal. I thought he had one of his better games for us, just as far as using his skating and his speed to his advantage. I think that’s one of the strengths to his game. He brings that element to our team.”

Shesterkin stopped 25 of the 30 shots he faced in his sixth loss of the season.

Brennan Othmann made his season debut and appeared in his 26th-career NHL game.

Logging 12:31 of ice time in his first game with the Rangers this season, Othmann posted one shot on goal and finished minus-one.

After opening the season 1-4, the Wolf Pack earned a big 6-3 win over the Springfield Thunderbirds on Saturday. Gabe Perreault, Dylan Roobroeck, Bryce McConnell-Barker and Blake Hillman led the way with a goal and an assist each.