Rangers still looking for offensive help

Winning and losing streaks also mean more in a truncated schedule, so as Rupp said: “You can’t afford to drop games in a row. That’s when teams will get in trouble.”

As inconsistently as the Rangers have played, they have avoided consecutive defeats since their season-opening back-to-back against Boston and Pittsburgh. To do so, they’ll need to rectify the scoring imbalance among their forwards.

The Money Line of highly-paid star forwards Marian Gaborik, Brad Richards and Rick Nash has eight goals and 20 points in seven games. The rest of the forwards have combined for just five goals and 11 points. The bug even has bitten Nash, who has just one goal (vs. the Penguins on Jan. 20).

That lack of depth is the reason that as of early this week, the Rangers still were inquiring about available free agent forwards, even after their deal with Jason Arnott fell through last weekend due to a failed physical. Ryan Callahan’s shoulder injury, sidelining him until at least Feb. 10, didn’t help matters either.