The Rangers played two games last night in their 3-2 shootout loss to Edmonton. They skated for the first 25 minutes or so in a nice deep sleep. There was no hitting, no pressure, no puck control, no hustling, no scoring. Then the alarm clock went off, and the hitting, hard work and (some) scoring miraculously arrived. But it wasn’t enough as they came out of the game with only one point.

After starting out the season 10-2-1, the Blueshirts have gone 1-3-1 in their last five games. Do we know what kind of team this is yet? They can’t seem to play a solid 60 minutes. They don’t score enough. They can barely score at all on the power play. They don’t always outwork the opponent. They get pushed around too easily. They don’t stick up for their goalie when he gets run over. They have too many defensive breakdowns. They turn the puck over too much. But they’re in first place. Is it a mirage? Is it all Henrik Lundqvist? Is it their rock-solid penalty killing?

The Rangers found themselves down 2-0 before they shook themselves out of their funk. The Oilers are the team that should have been sleepwalking. They played the night before, and have been on the road for two weeks to accommodate the Canadian Rodeo Finals (every time I took one of those tests in school to find out what career is suited to my personality and intellect, the answer always came out the same: rodeo clown). Their first goal was deflected off a skate, and they caught the Rangers standing around after a slow line change on the second one.

The only sign of life in the beginning of the game was when Colton Orr took on Zack Stortini. (“Hey,” my wife said while the fisticuffs ensued, “I once drank six Stortinis at a function at Macy’s. And I’m pretty sure I got in a fight with Colton Orr that night, too.”) But then Ryan Callahan started throwing some hits around, the fans got a “Let’s Go Rangers” chant going and the team took off from there. Skating, hitting, forechecking. Where was that in the first period? They outshot Edmonton 20-5 in the second. Paul Mara opened up the scoring, with his first goal in over a year. He joined the rush, and after some nice passing from Callahan and Markus Naslund, he put the puck in the net.

For the rest of the game, the Blueshirts worked hard, drew penalties, made diving plays for the puck and blocked shots. Blair Betts was a monster on the penalty kill (three for three). And in the third, Chris Drury scored a circus goal to tie the game. He knocked the puck in the net while holding onto his stick with one hand and falling down. You can’t practice that one. But again, they could only score two goals. They were 0 for four on the power play. They have to find offense from somebody. The lineup and line configurations were a revolving door again. Nigel Dawes and Petr Prucha were out, while Lauri ‘The Korpedo’ Korpikoski, back from Hartford, and Dan Fritsche were in. Dawes has one goal and one assist for the year, and Prucha, Korpedo, Fritsche and Patrick Rissmiller have combined for zero points. Yes, zero.

Lundqvist (29 saves) was great. Again. He’s holding the team together. He only lets in two goals a game, but the offense can’t score more than two a game. And he’s been run over and slashed while his teammates just stand by and watch. Where’s the protection? He got them to overtime, which was a wacky five minutes, filled with a penalty, turnovers, bouncing pucks and players falling down. Nikolai Zherdev, Fredrik Sjostrom and Naslund were all stopped cold in the shootout, while Ales Hemsky scored the only goal to win the game.

If the Blueshirts played a complete game, they could have won. But then again, they’d have to actually score goals for that to happen. Who are the Rangers? We’re still finding out.

Next game: Wednesday in beautiful New Jersey.

Bag-O’-Knuckles-O-Meter

Colton Orr: 4

Aaron Voros: 4

Paul Mara: 2

Ryan Callahan: 1

Brandon Dubinsky: 1

Marc Staal: 1