Changes are coming to Rangers’ miserable power play

PHILADELPHIA — After the Rangers’ latest dismal performance on the power play, changes are coming.

In a 5-1 loss to the Flyers on Monday night at Wells Fargo Center, the Rangers went 0-for-4 on the man advantage, including whiffing on 1:04 of a five-on-three. The power-play unit is now 0-for-18 over its last five games.

“We’re going to move some pieces around, I’ll tell you that,” coach David Quinn said. “But our mentality — we get it, we hold it, we stick-handle it, we look for a pretty pass instead of just moving it around and playing hockey within a power play. It’s killing us right now. We’ve done a lot of good things five-on-five, we put ourselves in a position to win, we’ve improved in a bunch of areas. But you gotta win the special-teams battle. You gotta score power-play goals when you get five or six a night. We didn’t do it.”

The Rangers killed off five penalties before Nicolas Aube-Kubel struck on the Flyers’ power play with 58 seconds left in the game. The Rangers also scored their lone goal of the night while shorthanded.

But the power play failed the Rangers.

“You get a five-on-three, you have to score. We didn’t,” Quinn said. “We had a few chances, but every time we get it, we slow it down and we look to make a pretty play. We’re gonna keep working on it because our power play’s really been a problem lately.”

Brett Howden played his second straight game as the right wing on the third line after playing the first 34 games of the season at center. Quinn bumped him to the flank with right wing Kaapo Kakko (lower body) out of the lineup for the second straight game, but Howden could get a longer shot there even when Kakko returns.

“It’s certainly an option,” Quinn said.

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