Peter Laviolette can’t keep going like this and expect Rangers to change

Will Cuylle did not get a second of power-play ice time through the Rangers’ pair of man advantages and Will Cuylle did not get on the ice after Igor Shesterkin was pulled late in Monday’s 2-1 Garden defeat to the last-overall Blackhawks.

But Mika Zibanejad got 2:37 on the power play and Mika Zibanejad was one of the six on the ice for the final 2:09 in which the Blueshirts recorded one shot on net and had three attempts blocked, two of them by No. 93.

There is no intention to make Zibanejad a scapegoat, but if the Rangers expect things to change, if Peter Laviolette expects things to change from his perch behind the bench, then the head coach might want to do something differently.

For it is time — well past time, actually — for Laviolette to distribute ice time wholly on merit and not on reputation. By the way, it was Cuylle who scored his team’s lone goal — and shorthanded, don’t you know — by going to the slot to bury a rebound after PK-partner Sam Carrick drove to the net and forced Arvid Soderstrom to make a pad save.