Head coach Peter Laviolette has helped the New York Rangers remain one of the better teams in the NHL in 2024-25. However, their fortunes are looking as good as they did earlier in the season. New York has dropped three straight games. This includes the Rangers' loss on Monday night to the St. Louis Blues at Madison Square Garden by the score of 5-2.
Blues forward Zack Bolduc scored twice as St. Louis gave new head coach Jim Montgomery his first win as bench boss. After the game, Laviolette met with the media for his usual postgame availability. And he took the opportunity to challenge his team after another brutal effort on the ice.
“We need to be better. Everyone needs to be better inside the room. It's not good enough what we're doing. I don't think anybody is going to sit here and say it was good enough. No matter what question you want to ask, it's got to be better,” the Rangers head coach said, via Mollie Walker of the New York Post.
Rangers' Peter Laviolette was not happy after losing to the Blues

Peter Laviolette continued venting his frustrations after Monday's loss to the Blues. He specifically pointed to how the Rangers played after giving up an early third-period goal. The New York bench boss clearly stated that his team has to carry themselves differently after such a crucial moment.
“We give up a goal to start the third period and then I don’t like the response after that. That’s the time to dig in, go get the next one and bring it back to even and we weren’t able to do that,” the Rangers head coach said, via Walker. “We need more of a response, because it’s not good enough. It wasn’t good enough tonight. We need more response. When something like that happens, there’s got to be a difference in the way we play the game, the attack that we go on. Right now, that was missing.”
New York allowed another two goals after Brayden Schenn gave the Blues the lead in the third. Bolduc scored his second goal of the night around seven minutes after Schenn's fourth of this season. Later on, defenseman Scott Perunovich scored his sixth goal of the year on an empty net.
Things are certainly not going well for the Rangers in recent games. Laviolette is looking for his team to make a statement and show some fight. Especially now that the team has maintained this below-standard level of play across multiple games.
“It's 3 games in a row where we're playing to a level and a standard that's not us and not what we work to be, not what we want to be. It's got to get better. Everybody's got to get better,” Laviolette said after the loss to the Blues on Monday night.