In their latest road loss to the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night, the New York Rangers had no one to blame but themselves for the 7-4 defeat at Canadian Tire Centre.

Similar to a 5-4 defeat to the Toronto Maple Leafs that came in the final minute of regulation on Oct. 22, the Rangers lost their structure against the very skilled Senators to fall to 1-5-1 on the road this season.

In fact, since suffering a 7-1 drubbing at the hands of the New Jersey Devils on Oct. 15, the Rangers have allowed 20 goals over their last three losses away from Madison Square Garden. Aside from a much more competitive 1-0 overtime shutout defeat versus the Columbus Blue Jackets on Oct. 17, they’ve been outscored 19-9 in the other three defeats.

It’s a disturbing trend that can’t continue. With the Rangers turning to Dylan Garand as their number one goalie, it’s a lot of pressure to ask an unproven rookie to carry a much heavier workload than he’s used to. In the previous four seasons with the Hartford Wolf Pack in the American Hockey League, he never started 40 games. The most he made was 39 twice.

A notable difference between the NHL and AHL is that while one league plays regularly during the week, the other has most of its games on weekends. That allows for more recovery time when teams are often off between Monday through Thursday, with at most maybe one game on the schedule. A stark contrast between the AHL and NHL.

Even with the Rangers having a favorable schedule thus far, which has included only one back-to-back that Garand won by recording his first career shutout against the Detroit Red Wings on Oct. 2, he didn’t take over as their starter until Igor Shesterkin suffered a season-ending right knee injury against the Washington Capitals on Oct. 9.

After winning his first two games as the new number one goalie, he was chased by the Devils for four goals on nine shots over two weeks ago. That marked the only game that journeyman Spencer Martin appeared in. It didn’t get any better with Martin giving up three goals on 18 shots due to poor defensive coverage. A common denominator in the Rangers’ recent losses at Toronto and Ottawa.

The 24-year-old Garand has shown some chinks in the armor the past two games by allowing some bad rebounds that resulted in goals. That included Jake Sanderson putting in a rebound to give the Senators a 5-3 lead with less than seven minutes remaining in regulation last night. That followed relentless pressure from the Rangers, who came close to rallying back from a 4-1 deficit.

To be fair, Sanderson’s goal was also due to another defensive breakdown from all five Rangers skaters. After Braden Schneider sent a weak backhand towards the net that was blocked, the Senators quickly transitioned up the ice without any resistance. Michael Amadio easily gained entry into the Rangers zone by going around Vladislav Gavrikov, who then puck watched as Ridly Creig drove to the net for a shot that Garand gave up a rebound on, which led to Sanderson putting it away.

New fourth line center Luke Glendening wasn’t even close on the backcheck with the other forwards trailing the play. It was a poor example of how not to defend in a one-goal game that the Rangers chased due to a bad start that saw the Senators score twice in a lopsided first period that could’ve been worse than a 2-0 deficit.

With the game still scoreless earlier, the Sens grabbed the lead when Sanderson easily found a wide open Drake Batherson for his first of three goals on the night. It was a sloppy rotation from the Rangers, who had the fourth line out with Gavrikov and Marcus Pettersson. Batherson had plenty of time to beat Garand, who couldn’t get across in time due to the botched coverage.

Over a minute later, it was more of the same from the Rangers. Schneider couldn’t handle a tough pass from J.T. Miller at the blue line, which led directly to Claude Giroux and Fabian Zetterlund combining to set up Tim Stutzle for a pretty goal to make it 2-0. Neither Schneider nor Miller were in the right position defensively. Rookie Alberts Smits was unable to prevent the pass across while partner Schneider didn’t pick up Stutzle, who also beat Miller on the play.

The defensive issues continued on Batherson’s second goal that made it 3-0 early in the second period. Dylan Cozens had a shot bounce right to Batherson, who beat Garand again with only Gavrikov in the picture.

Following a nice play from Noah Laba, who led Will Cuylle for a shorthanded goal, Dylan Cozens was left alone to deflect in a Batherson pass that put the Rangers behind 4-1. He beat Pettersson for the goal.

Aside from the Sanderson rebound that he should have had, Garand was hung out to dry for a second straight game. In the previous one-goal loss to the Leafs, he gave up a bad rebound to Kirill Marchenko for a power-play goal. He’ll need to work on controlling rebounds during a relatively light week ahead.

After they host Artemi Panarin and the Los Angeles Kings at MSG tomorrow night, the Rangers are off the next five days. That should give them plenty of time to work on things. They haven’t started well lately, falling behind early the last two games. An area they’ll need to be better at in order to survive without Shesterkin.

Reimer Signed by Rangers

Following a pro tryout with the Wolf Pack, the Rangers signed veteran netminder James Reimer to a one-year, $850,000 contract.

A well traveled backup who’s been in the league a long time, the 38-year-old Reimer will join his ninth NHL team. Once upon a time, he was the Leafs starter when they first returned to the postseason in 2012-13. They lost the first round in seven games to the Boston Bruins.

After spending the first part of his career with Toronto, Reimer also played for San Jose, Florida, Carolina, San Jose again, Detroit, Anaheim, Buffalo, and most recently Ottawa. In 14 appearances for the Senators last season, he went 7-4-2 with a 2.42 goals-against-average, .886 save percentage, and one shutout.

Over a 16-year career, Reimer has appeared in 539 games and went 232-191-67 with a 2.87 GAA, .909 save percentage, and 32 shutouts.

With Garand having made the last seven starts, there’s a good possibility that Reimer could make his Rangers debut on Monday night against the Kings. That’ll depend on what head coach Mike Sullivan decides is best for his slumping team that’s lost some of its steam due to the poor performances on the road.

They’re still 7-5-1 entering tomorrow’s match. However, that’s largely due to a perfect 6-0 home record in which they’ve outscored opponents 29-10.

Rangers Send Martin and Robertson Down

After recalling Matthew Robertson due to the status of Sean Durzi, who took a couple of maintenance days, the Rangers sent the defenseman back down to Hartford. Joining him is Martin, who’ll return to playing in the AHL.

The Rangers never showed enough trust to have Martin make a start with the heavier workload catching up to Garand. It was evident that Reimer would replace him on the roster with Joonas Korpisalo just starting to skate. He’s been out with a foot infection since the start of the season.