Peter Laviolette didn’t need much time to air how disgusted he was with the New York Rangers performance Saturday in a brutal 8-2 loss to the Buffalo Sabres at KeyBank Center in their first game after the 4 Nations Face-Off break.
The Rangers coach spoke with the media postgame for all of 90 seconds. In that short span, he found a way to express his anger and disappointment with every aspect of his team’s performance.
“We weren’t good as a team and we got what we deserved,” he said.
The Sabres scored 1:46 into the game and then blitzed the Rangers for four more goals later in the period putting the visitors in a 5-0 hole at the first intermission. It was stunning to see a team fighting for its playoff life be so uncompetitive coming off a two-week break and against the team with the worst record in the Eastern Conference.
Jack Quinn kicks things off against the Rangers, 1-0 #Sabrehood #NYR pic.twitter.com/n20xEO96VH
— Buffalo Hockey Moments (@SabresPlays) February 22, 2025
“It wasn’t good,” Laviolette said. “There was nothing that was good about the game. Terrible start, terrible first period. It didn’t get much better from there. It was not the game we were looking for coming out of the break. That’s it in a nutshell.”
Igor Shesterkin returned not only from the break but from an upper-body injury and didn’t make it through the first period. He allowed five goals on 16 shots in fewer than 19 minutes. Laviolette refused to discuss Shesterkin’s performance individually, focusing more on the collective mess the Rangers were.
“There’s systems to the game, there’s details to the game, there’s execution with the puck. There’s also speed to the game, compete,” Laviolette explained. “There’s a lot of things that needed to be elevated to a much higher level. And like I said, they weren’t.
Peter Laviolette wants Rangers to be ‘more determined group’
This is the second time in the past three games when Laviolette was so disgusted that he cut short his postgame session with reporters. He also did so Feb. 7 after an unacceptable 3-2 loss at home to the Pittsburgh Penguins, who were playing without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin that night.
In a touch of irony, the Rangers try to rebound Sunday when they visit the Penguins in Pittsburgh.
Laviolette juggled line combinations against the Sabres and could do so again against the Penguins. But unless reinforcements are brought up from Hartford in the American Hockey League, Laviolette only has forward Jimmy Vesey or rookie defenseman Matthew Robertson at his disposal to move into the lineup Sunday. Neither is hardly a difference maker.
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