"It was unacceptable": HC Peter Laviolette doesn't mince his words about NY Rangers' effort in 3-2 loss to Malkin, Crosby-less Penguins 

On paper, the New York Rangers should have been easily able to handle the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night at Madison Square Garden. After all, the Penguins were without their two most important players, future Hall of Famers Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin.

However, the Rangers proved unable to get the job done in front of their home fans, losing by a 3-2 final score and slipping to 26-24-4. They're also five points outside of the final Wild Card Spot in the Eastern Conference.

Following the disappointing loss, head coach Peter Laviolette was a man of few words, issuing one-word answers to the few questions he allowed before departing.

But his longest utterance was stating the obvious of how his team performed:

"It's unacceptable.... we needed to pick up on the back check and we didn't."

Before the game, Laviolette spoke about the importance of picking up points in the standings, something that they missed a key opportunity to do against the shorthanded Penguins.

“It doesn’t take much to figure it out,’’ Laviolette said via New York Post. “We’ve got to win hockey games [and] we’ve got to win a lot of them. Every chance we get to get two points, grab them.”

The Rangers have one game left before the 4 Nations Face-off brings a pause in the schedule from Feb. 12 to 20; they'll play the Columbus Blue Jackets.

Penguins defeated Rangers without Sidney Crosby and Evgeni Malkin at Madison Square Garden

The Penguins appeared ripe for the picking by the Rangers, especially without the presence of their two biggest stars in the lineup.

The opening 20 minutes went well enough for the Rangers, who grabbed the 1-0 lead thanks to Vincent Trochek's 17th goal of the season.

But the Penguins tied the game early in the second period; Blake Lizotte scored his ninth goal. While the Rangers responded immediately to re-take the one-goal lead after Adam Fox beat goaltender Alex Nedeljkovic, the Penguins mounted another comeback effort.

Rickard Rakell and Philip Tomasino scored back-to-back goals in under two minutes; Tomasino's goal was scored with the man advantage.

Despite pulling goaltender Igor Shesterkin late in regulation for a sixth attacker in an attempt to knot the score, the Rangers proved unable to do so.

Shesterkin finished with 23 saves on the 26 shots that Pittsburgh sent his way, while Alex Nedeljkovic fended off the Rangers with 22 saves.