When the Rangers dropped their first two games, Marc Staal said that getting better was all mental and the Rangers needed to regain their tougher mentality.

Following Rangers practice yesterday, John Tortorella echoed those same thoughts while speaking with Ranger Rants, “We need to be stronger mentally, everything starts there. We are not at that level consistently enough and that’s something that needs to improve before anything else improves on the ice, the approach has to change as far as how hard you have to play.”

Tortorella added, “when you’re tentative, you’re just not sure about yourself. You go through the lineup, there’s a number of guys who are fighting it. That transforms into overthinking. This game isn’t for thinking, it’s about reacting, it’s about being quick, it’s about being hard and that’s the mental part of it.”

Tortorella, at ESPN NY, said that last night the Rangers were “lethargic.”

Carl Hagelin, at the Rangers website, said, “we need to be more consistent in the game. We can’t be taking as many penalties as we are. Maybe we take a shift off, give them a penalty and give them the momentum instead of staying on them and make sure that we are the team leading.”

He added, “It’s a matter of guys wanting to play their best hockey. You always see guys playing well in some games but it’s important that we have all 20 guys playing at their best. Maybe not 20 but 15/18 but not like 5 or 6 each game. We nee to get that in our mind that everyone needs to be at their best. It’s just a matter of doing it the right way mentally. We just gotta be prepared, start winning battles and that comes from being ready to play.”