"The Rangers played last night's game against the Penguins in waves. In the end, the troughs far outweighed the crests, the result being a 4-1 loss in front of a sold-out Garden.

"Our team has to understand if you're going to have a record like we have, teams are going to start looking for you," coach John Tortorella said about his team, which still remains in first place in the Eastern Conference (29-13-4). "You've got to be ready to play and we weren't."

Though they have rolled for much of the first half of this season — to the point where they were recently lauded by their owner James Dolan as being close to winning a Stanley Cup — the Rangers have lost three of their past five games, the first time they've done that all season. It's far from being a streak that will cause a panic, but at this point it at least has the coach's fiery attention."