David Quinn challenging Rangers to shoot the puck more

DALLAS — Before the Rangers flew to Detroit for Thursday’s matchup against the Red Wings, David Quinn made sure he drilled a message into their heads.

“We need to shoot more pucks,” the coach said Wednesday after a practice that had a heavy emphasis on exactly that. “We’ve heard that from Day 1. Just something we gotta create more of a shooting mentality.”

The Rangers tallied 28 shots Tuesday in a 1-0 loss to the Stars. More concerning was the fact just three of those shots came on the four power plays the Rangers had. They recorded just as many shots shorthanded on a night when their offense went missing.

Their power play woes weren’t restricted to Tuesday, though, now stuck in an 0-for-14 slump over the past four games.

“[It was] much more our own decision-making and not willing to shoot pucks and not having an idea what we were going to do with the puck before we got it,” Quinn said of Tuesday’s man-advantage struggles. “The basics of our power play.”

Tuesday marked the Rangers’ 36th one-goal game of the season, the most in the NHL. They have won just 16 of them.

“There are things that are in our control that can put us in a situation where we’re not losing these one-goal games, we’re winning them,” Quinn said. “One of the things we have to do a better job of is get to the net more. Conversely, we have to defend our net front better.”

Marc Staal and Jesper Fast were missing from practice. Fast took his usual maintenance day, but Quinn said Staal was battling the flu after playing sick Tuesday night. The defenseman’s status for Thursday was to be determined. Staal has played in all 65 games this year.

Chris Kreider played on the third line Tuesday alongside Brett Howden and Filip Chytil, but was back in his normal spot on the top line Wednesday with Zibanejad and Jimmy Vesey.

“Just to get a little bit of balance,” Quinn said.

Lias Andersson, who was a healthy scratch Tuesday, will be back in the lineup Thursday and was centering the fourth line Wednesday with Boo Nieves on his left and Chytil on his right.

Quinn said he had not yet decided which forwards would be out of the lineup.

After Alexandar Georgiev started back-to-back games — including an impressive performance in Tuesday’s loss — Henrik Lundqvist will return to the nets against the Red Wings.