Rangers using 2-day break to rest, reset for Game 6 at Hurricanes

Here's the positive spin after a negative night for the New York Rangers:

A two-day break before Game 6 might be exactly what they need to get their bearings back in an Eastern Conference Second Round series against the Carolina Hurricanes they were in control of only three days ago.

"I think it's good just from a rest and reset standpoint," Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said Tuesday. "They get the same rest and reset. It's not like they're going to play another game today and we're going to catch them tired. It's all even, but I do think it's good just to make sure that we're dialed in and we're ready to go with our game."

The thing about a positive spin is it's only good for now, when there is time to rest and reset, get in an off-ice workout, have some meetings and do some soul searching after a 4-1 loss in Game 5 at Madison Square Garden that everybody knows wasn't up to the standard the Rangers have set for themselves this season.

The positive spin only will matter in Game 6 at PNC Arena on Thursday (7 p.m. ET; MAX, truTV, TNT, SNO, SNE, SN360, TVAS, CBC) if the Rangers embrace diving into the details that escaped them Monday, and work to correct them so they can be better and a much more desperate team.

They still lead the best-of-7 series 3-2, but the Hurricanes won the past two games and if momentum carries from game to game in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, it's clearly not on the Rangers' side right now.

"Desperation is a funny thing," Laviolette said. "You can't give it to somebody. You actually have to feel it and you have to be in it, and then you can rise to that level. We move into the next game, and you realize now that the window is a little bit smaller and that desperation rises.

"There's always conversations that we have with the team to be ready, whether they're motivational or instructional or systematic, whatever they might be. We've got two days to square things away here."

Day One is Tuesday. Laviolette said players were at their training facility working, but there was no formal practice scheduled. That's for Day Two on Wednesday, a full practice before they fly to Raleigh, North Carolina.

Between the two days the Rangers will review what went wrong in Game 5, but even Laviolette said it's hard to get a good read on why they were off their game even before allowing Carolina to score four unanswered goals in the third period.

"Last night, it's just tough to get a real evaluation for anybody," he said. "It was just a tough game for us and we're moving past that."

They can't move past all the details, like on the power play. Why has it suddenly gone cold, 0-for-8 in the past three games after starting the series 4-for-9, including 2-for-2 in Game 1?

"We have to execute better on our entries," center Vincent Trocheck said.

Trocheck added that he doesn't think the Hurricanes have changed what they're doing on their penalty kill. They're still aggressive, but the Rangers haven't handled that pressure well.

They've been slow and it's taken away the attack mindset they had.

"We've got to go back and look at how we can get through a little better, how we can set up a little bit easier," Laviolette said. "There's a lot of pressure applied from them through the neutral zone and certainly a lot of pressure applied by them in their defensive zone when we're on the offensive side of things in an in-zone setup. We're looking to be better in both of those areas."

Their 5-on-5 game needs to sharpen up. Not only did they not score at 5-on-5 in Game 5, they were held to 15 shots on goal. If they had any Grade-A high-danger chances, they weren't memorable.

Their only offense came on Jacob Trouba's short-handed goal at 6:23 of second period.

"We sacrificed some of our structure in our [defensive] zone and I think as a result we were working hard in areas but not smart, especially early on," forward Chris Kreider said after Game 5. "We gave up a lot of odd-man rushes, which isn't something we've done all series. We tightened it up, but we don't exactly play detailed hockey. We started dumping pucks on their goaltender as opposed to putting them in places to forecheck, or hard-rimming pucks and not getting to the neutral zone. They do the simple things and over time those are eventually going to lead to chances and results."

It all led to a snowball effect in the third period, when the Hurricanes scored three goals in a span of 6:23 before Martin Necas capped it with an empty-net goal at 16:29.

"We're looking at it with regard to what we need to do to be better," Laviolette said. "I think it comes in a lot of different ways that we can try to do that. I go back to, we've got a lot of confidence as a group. There's been games this year where we haven't played well and the guys responded with a much better effort the next game. There's some history there. We'll take the day to reset, get in some good work tomorrow and then be ready to play. There's a lot of history with our group that we can sharpen up and be ready."

That's also a positive spin after a negative night.