The Rangers turned to their internal youth to resuscitate the team after an alarming finish to their four-game road trip, but it did not prevent the club from losing its third straight game.
A more dramatic change was deemed necessary by the hierarchy even before the Blueshirts’ 5-2 loss to the Blues on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
The Post confirmed that president and general manager Chris Drury sent a memo to all 31 of his NHL counterparts announcing that the Rangers are open for business, specifically citing multiple players as available, not just their longest-tenured player, Chris Kreider, and captain, Jacob Trouba.
As TSN’s Elliotte Friedman first reported, the Blueshirts have made it known that they are looking to shake things up.
Surrendering three games in a row is something the Rangers did only once last season, when they dropped four straight from January 6-13.
Management had evidently already come to the realization that alterations must be made, even without watching the Rangers fall to a St. Louis team that had lost seven of their past nine games.
Coincidentally, Kreider did not suit up for Monday’s game against the Blues. The Rangers said Kreider, who is in his 13th season in New York, is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
That, paired with Filip Chytil’s continued recovery from a non-concussion injury, opened the door for some major line changes and a call to AHL Hartford to bring up Matt Rempe and Brett Berard, who made his NHL debut Monday night.
Shattering a 2-2 tie at the start of the third period with two goals within the first 8 ½ minutes of the final period, however, the Blues added insult to injury and piled on the Rangers even more.
An empty-netter from former Ranger Pavel Buchnevich capped the game.
The lone bright spot of the last 48 hours was Will Cuylle, who has been a force for the Rangers almost every single night since the start of the season.
And the second-year Ranger delivered again with his fifth multi-point performance of the season and first multi-goal game of his burgeoning NHL career.
As the organization’s tides begin to lean in favor of the young core, the 22-year-old Cuylle has made his way to the front to spearhead the initiative. It was quiet at first, but recently Cuylle has been banging the drum by way of his consistently effective play — as if to say, “I’m ready for more.”
The Rangers scored first for the first time since the first game of their recent four-game road trip in Seattle on Nov. 17.
With Cuylle posted up in front of the net, Kaapo Kakko flung the puck in that general direction before it deflected off Cuylle’s skate and in to open the scoring just under nine minutes into the game.
Skating in their first game under new head coach Jim Montgomery, the Blues managed to answer just under three minutes later. Mika Zibanejad’s weak pass off the boards was tough for Trouba to handle before Brayden Schenn beat the Rangers captain to the puck.
Schenn dished to Jordan Kyrou, who blasted one from between the circles for the 1-1 score.
St. Louis took its first lead of the night in the second period, when the visitors funneled a neutral-zone giveaway back into the Rangers zone and had the home team on the ropes. Zack Bolduc then put a bouncing puck past Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin to score his first goal of the season.
Less than three minutes later, however, Cuylle first won the race to the puck to keep it in the Rangers zone before he crashed the net and buried his second of the night off a feed from Zibanejad.
Cuylle attacked the net so hard, he had to jump on top of it to stop himself after the puck went in.
