David Quinn apoplectic over Rangers’ ‘joke’ of an effort

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COLUMBUS, Ohio — OK, so John Tortorella was behind the other bench, and Rick Nash was in the building, and the stage for a Rangers coach going apoplectic was set.

But really, this wasn’t about the past. This was about David Quinn, and about the current iteration of the Rangers. This was about the first-year coach unable to contain his rage after his young group gave a half-hearted effort and got hammered, 7-5, by the Blue Jackets on Sunday night.

“You’re going to lose hockey games. But you better want to battle somebody. It’s just ridiculous,” Quinn said. “Three games where we feel good about our effort and our compete, and then we come out here and do that? It’s a freaking joke.”

Those three games would be when the Rangers (18-20-7) felt good about the end of a winless road trip, then felt good about dropping the first game of a home-and-home with the Islanders before taking the back end, their first-ever victory at Barclays Center on Saturday afternoon.

But this? This was something entirely different. This was Tortorella’s veteran Blue Jackets (27-15-3) showing the Rangers what it is to compete — and what happens when you don’t.

“That’s a team that competes hard on pucks and tests your mettle. We failed miserably tonight. Miserably,” Quinn said. “Our lack of determination in our one-on-one battles, fishing for pucks; you do that in this league, that’s what happens. You get your asses handed to you.”

Quinn also made it very clear that this tape is not going to be thrown out. More likely, he is going to pry his players’ eyes open and make them watch it over and over again — wandering the defensive zone like lost Israelites and going into corners with mortal caution. Yes, Jimmy Vesey scored and cut the deficit to 6-5 with just 3:12 remaining in regulation, but with hardly any effort, Columbus captain Nick Foligno was able to score his second goal of the night just over a minute later to seal his team’s victory.

“We’re going to watch this and we’re going to learn from this,” Quinn said. “We have zero chance if we’ve got 20 guys in uniform not wanting to compete for pucks and get into people and have a little bit of snarl to your game.”

Poor goalie Alexandar Georgiev, who was playing both legs of this back-to-back and got such a different effort in front of him than the tidy 2-1 win in Brooklyn. He faced 40 shots, but it’s hard to think of one of the seven goals he surrendered as one he might want back.

“It’s no fun to play when it’s already five, six goals against you,” Georgiev said. “But it is what it is.”

The superlative Artemi Panarin beat Georgiev off a blown draw coverage; Anthony Duclair scored on a roof-shot off a wide rush around a discombobulated Kevin Shattenkirk; Cam Atkinson had a nice tip when Marc Staal gave him too much room; and fourth-liner Lukas Sedlak got one when he was left alone in front by Brett Howden. With the Rangers having gotten first-period goals from Ryan Strome and Chris Kreider, they then got the first of two from Mats Zuccarello with 1:02 left in the second period to make it 4-3.

But any sense of a pulse disappeared when Foligno got his first of the night with just two seconds remaining in the second period, left alone by Brendan Smith at the far post for a tap-in goal to make it 5-3 going into the third.

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“They just won every one-on-one battle. It was unbelievable that every time we went into the corner, they came out with the puck,” Quinn said. “Our lack of ability to be physical and fish for pucks, looked like we’d never been over ‘D’ zone coverage.”

Now Quinn has to get his team to respond. With little practice time coming up before the bye week starts on Jan. 20, that is a tall task.

“I wish I could have a practice where I could throw some pucks into a corner and see who comes out with it,” Quinn said. “We’re going to keep working at it, no matter any fashion we can. We’re going to get after it.”

OK, so it’s not about the past. But Tortorella would’ve liked that line.