Mika Zibanejad of the New York Rangers shoots the puck against...

Mika Zibanejad of the New York Rangers shoots the puck against the Minnesota Wild. Credit: Getty Images/David Berding

Keep shooting.

That’s the Rangers’ approach to digging themselves out of this current winless (0-2-2) streak they find themselves in following their 3-0 loss Wednesday to the Islanders. They are going to try and shoot their way out of it.

The Rangers (3-3-2) came up empty against the Islanders despite launching 41 shots at Ilya Sorokin. That was one night after they fired 46 at their former teammate, Alexandar Georgiev, in a 3-2 shootout loss to the Colorado Avalanche. But the 87 shots in back-to-back games were encouraging for coach Gerard Gallant.

“That’s good,’’ he said after the loss to the Islanders. “I mean, the analytics guys are wrong, we lost both those games. But keep putting pucks to the net, you know? We always begged for them to shoot the puck more last year, and we're getting more shots. They’ve just got to go in.’’

They will, eventually, said Mika Zibanejad, who had six shots against Colorado and four against the Islanders.

“I think keep shooting,’’ Zibanejad said. “Keep getting guys in front of the goalie, trying to keep creating those chances . . . I don't think we're going to score more goals trying to look for a better chance, or a better opportunity, or trying to look for that wide-open net, or the backdoor tap-in, or anything like that. So I think we're just going to keep going, keep shooting, and play the percentage.’’

As a team, the Rangers were third in the NHL with an average of 37.4 shots per game entering Thursday, but their 22 goals scored in eight games were 20th in the league.

The way Zibanejad sees it, a correction will come at some point.

“We did a lot of good things out there [against the Islanders] and the puck's just not going in right now,’’ he said. “Every team goes through it throughout the year at some point, and our tough stretch is right now. And we’ve just got to keep trusting each other, keep working through this and trust ourselves.’’

Part of the problem has been the power play, which, after getting off to a hot start, has abruptly gone cold, scoring once in its last 14 opportunities. That stretch started with an 0-for-5 against the San Jose Sharks, who had not allowed a power-play goal all season at that point. The man-up unit went 0-for-3 against the Islanders, who are a perfect 25-for-25 on the penalty kill and who entered Thursday as one of two teams (St. Louis was the other) who had yet to give up a power-play goal this season.

“Obviously you're going to play against good penalty kills that do a good job on you,’’ Zibanejad said. “We've been playing against good PKs, but that shouldn't just, you know, have us say, ‘All right, that's fine. We didn't score against a good PK.’ Obviously we're not going to be OK with it. But . . . again, like the 5-on-5, we've just got to keep going. We're getting some chances. The guys are putting the pucks over to my side [for one-timers] and . . . the puck doesn't go in right now. I'm trying. I think everyone is. And we just got to keep going. That's all.’’

Notes & quotes: The Rangers on Thursday signed 27-year-old defenseman Ben Harpur to a one-year, two-way contract after he joined AHL Hartford on a professional tryout Oct. 13. Harpur, 6-6, 231 pounds, played four games for Hartford and was assigned to the Wolf Pack.

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