Rangers have chance to prove theyre better than this after decisive drubbing by Devils

The disappointment was palpable in the Rangers locker room Thursday in the aftermath of a 7-1 Battle of the Hudson loss that went from promising to bad to worse to downright embarrassing rather quickly. “Not proud of that performance,” J.T.Miller said.  Join Post Sports+ for exciting subscriber-only features, including real-time texting with Mollie Walker about the inside buzz on the Rangers.

It was one of those games that gets away and all of a sudden, “You’re chasing,” Adam Fox said. But there was also a sense that it was a one-off, that the habits the Blueshirts had built over the past month since training camp began — and over the first eight games of the season — could flush everything that went wrong. For the worst start of Dylan Garand’s young career to be an anomaly.For the defensive identity of checking and forechecking and closing in the third period to materialize again Saturday night in Columbus.

For an offense that had scored at least four goals in five of six wins to start generating chances again consistently. That turns Saturday night’s match against the Blue Jackets into an early-season litmus test, a gauge of whether they can move on from a crushing loss — like they did after their first two defeats of the young season — or whether this might start to spiral.The loss in New Jersey dropped them to 1-3 away from the Garden, and three of their next four games will be on the road. “[Thursday] shows what happens when we don’t do it,” Mika Zibanejad said Thursday, “and I feel like we’ve been building that game — and that’s why I think it’s easier to spot the difference and what happens when we don’t play our game and the little details that we have to do within our game.” At the center of their attempt to erase what happened will be Garand — the starter for the foreseeable future with Joonas Korpisalo on long-term injured reserve and Igor Shesterkin out for the season. He entered play Thursday...