Rangers fail to strengthen Presidents’ Trophy hopes in ugly loss to Flyers

The Rangers may not be one of the several NHL teams still battling to qualify for the playoffs, like the Flyers, their opponents on Thursday, but they are still playing for something. 

Finishing out this regular season in a way that properly honors it — as the No. 1 seed in the Eastern Conference or as the Presidents’ Trophy winner or both — matters to this Blueshirts team, which has gone stagnant in its pursuit of such accomplishments after its second loss in a row, a 4-1 defeat at the hands of the Flyers in front of a hushed Garden crowd Thursday night. 

“We want to end on a high note, and we’re fighting for the division right now,” Ryan Lindgren said. “These two games coming up here are big. We just want to be playing good hockey and feeling good about ourselves going into the playoffs, for sure.” 

At the beginning of the week, the Rangers had four games to pick up four points to secure both the division and the conference. 

Now, they’ll have to win their final two games in order to fulfill these apparent goals. 

As much as it’s about winning as many games as possible this time of year, as well as wanting optimal playoff position, any of the aforementioned accolades would do so much more than just fill the trophy case for this Rangers team.