The Rangers may have escaped with two points Sunday by defeating Seattle 3-2 at the Garden on K’Andre Miller’s goal at 19:26 of the third period that came 34 seconds after the Kraken tied the score, but they surely did not — and will not — escape head coach Gerard Gallant’s wrath in response to their insufficient performance. 

“I think it was awful,” Gallant all but shouted from the dais following the Rangers’ third straight subpar performance. “Loved the win, but I’m not happy. 

“Competitiveness … quite a bit [missing]. Very disappointing. I’m not disrespecting their team, they play hard, I’m talking about my team and we didn’t play hard enough.” 

The Rangers generated less of an attack in this one than the Football Giants with Jake Fromm at quarterback even while taking a 2-0 lead early in the second period. There was no forecheck pressure, no possession below the hash marks and no containment as the Kraken broke out of their own end with ease and as they outshot, out-attempted and out-chanced the Blueshirts by a substantial margin. 

After taking a 1-0 lead at 11:46 of the first period on Mika Zibanejad’s power-play one-timer, the Rangers went the next 7:49 without a shot on netminder Philipp Grubauer. And when Alexis Lafreniere ended a nine-game drought by scoring on a put-back of a Zibanejad snipe that clanged iron, the Blueshirts then went the next 12:49 without getting a shot on goal. 

You want to know why Gallant said it was, “awful?” Well, perhaps the fact that Rangers forwards recorded a total of three shots at five-on-five through the match’s first 48:11 — count ’em, one for Lafreniere, one for Dryden Hunt, one for Zibanejad — had something to do with it. That, and the fact that the team was saved by Igor Shesterkin, whose team had been outshot by an overall 28-13 early in the third and 42-24 overall. 

Gallant rarely lambasts his team publicly, doing so only once before Sunday when he called the club “soft” after a 1-0 defeat to the Predators on Dec. 12. But this was another level. This also came after a third consecutive subpar performance and a third straight game in which the Rangers blew a 2-0 lead. It’s more than these 60 minutes. 

For while the Blueshirts did survive this one after defeats to Columbus and Minnesota, there has been steady slippage in attention to detail and battle-level. There were some good stretches in those two games, a strong open and close against the Jackets, an imposing first period and furious finish against the Wild, but there was a whole lot of nothing throughout this one. 

“The last three games for sure, definitely,” Gallant said when asked if he had noticed a slippage. When asked if there is an explanation the coach said, “I’m going to try and find that out, trust me. Because I’m not happy. 

“It was disappointing to watch that after two losses. I expect a lot more from my group and didn’t see much of it.” 

The Rangers are playing short up front, missing Kaapo Kakko and Filip Chytil, players who were underperforming when they went out of the lineup, anyway. They are playing without Adam Fox on the back end. But that doesn’t make for a good excuse. It doesn’t make for an excuse at all for this one in which it was well nigh impossible to determine which of the clubs was an expansion outfit. 

The Rangers began with the same alignment they had utilized on Friday, with Lafreniere up with Zibanejad and Chris Kreider; Barclay Goodrow on the right with Ryan Strome and Artemi Panarin; Jonny Brodzinski between Greg McKegg and Julien Gauthier on the third unit; and Kevin Rooney between Hunt and Ryan Reaves on the fourth line. 

But the fourth line was deficient on the other side of the puck when Jared McCann scored on a three-on-two to cut the lead to 2-1 at 7:17 of the second, and the third line was having a dickens of a time coming up with the puck. So Gallant borrowed from Peter to pay Paul and moved Goodrow into the middle of a bottom six unit between Rooney and Reaves to try and at least stabilize things even if that detracted from the top six. This is not a commentary on injuries, it is a commentary on the Rangers’ lack of depth. 

For all of that, they did manage to win the game, Miller striking on a wrist shot off a Zibanejad faceoff win in the right circle after Yanni Gourde’s power-play one-timer had tied it with the Seattle net empty. 

“It’s a lot easier to move on and look at things when you win,” Zibanejad said. “But we don’t want to ignore this. We’ll talk about this.” 

They’ll talk about it, all right. The Rangers can plan on that.