The Rangers snatched defeat from the jaws of victory Tuesday. After rallying from a 2-0 deficit to take 3-2 and 4-3 leads, the Blueshirts coughed up the lead and the game in ignominious fashion. A pair of defensive miscues, the second way worse then the first one, with the first coming with less than a minute to go in the game and the second in the first minute of overtime cost New York what could have been streak-starting victory.
Game Highlights Recap:
If there are any
positives to take from the game, besides the point earned, it’s that the offense finally woke up. First, you saw what could happen when the Rangers are able to use the stretch pass, which led to David Drsharnais’ first goal of the season. A pair of power play goals of Sidney Crosby’s four-minute penalty forged a 3-2 lead. Good puck movement created open lanes and each player - Pavel Buchnevich and J.T. Miller - followed Desharnais’ route by beating Matt Murray up high. The final tally came on a gorgeous passing sequence, read by Desharnais and dart to open space by Michael Grabner. But those moments were fleeting.
One more big positive. He failed to score but holy god was Rick Nash good. You want your veterans and leaders to set the time, especially in going hard to the net. Nash did that and more last night. Hard down the wings, using his skill to go to the center of the Ice, carrying defensemen with him. He failed to score but any of his teammates watching that effort should have learned a bit on the effort required nightly yesterday.
Now the cons:
Defense - a pair of bad early turnovers created odd-man rushes. On the first, Ryan McDonagh - remember that name - made a poor neutral zone pass. Kevin Hayes was out of position, allowing Phil Kessel to take advantage of the first one while Carl Hagelin converted on the second. On the latter, I thought the Brady Skjei played the 2-on-1 pretty well, leaving the shooter to Henrik Lundqvist. But Hags beat Hank high to the short side.
Poor start and lack of killer instinct - giving up a goal 15 seconds into the game is not the way to reverse the trend of poor starts. If it wasn’t for Lundqvist, the game would have been over halfway through the first stanza. Then, up 3-2 with almost two minutes of 5-on-3, you have to convert there. Get a two-goal lead and allow the crowd to carry you. Instead, a failure to capitalize and Pitt ties it later in the frame following a unnecessary penalty by Chris Kreider.
As the NY Post noted: “Back to last year’s playoffs, Tuesday marked the third straight time and fourth time in the past five matches that the Rangers yielded the tying goal in a five-on-six situation while attempting to protect a one-goal lead.” Remember the halcyon days when of New York ended the third period with a game, you could write your game recap and not worry that a full rewrite would be needed because the opponent would tie the game? I miss those days.
Lundqvist - as good as he was at times was as bad as he was in others. Goals three and five were clearly not his fault. But you could argue one and two should’ve have been stopped. In between those two and after the second, he pretty much closed the door. The fourth goal was poor positioning technically and anticipation.
When the puck in behind the net, Lundqvist has to be square to the post with his stick flat hugging it. Instead, he started to leak out, playing the slot shot before the puck arrived and had his stick on an angle. That allowed Crosby’s shot to deflect off the stick and past Lundqvist for a back-breaking tally.
Shattenkirk and McDonagh - I blame ‘Kirk only somewhat on the fourth goal. It’s posisble he didn’t know it was a hand pass and also didn’t realize that the Pitt player didn’t tick it with his stick, creating the hand pass. Someone on the ice should be screaming, hand pass, hand pass so he knows. Give Crosby credit for turning his body, using his legs to shield the puck, forcing Shattenkirk to only have the ability to tap it, resulting in the game-tying goal.
I wish I could explain what’s wrong with McDonagh but I can’t. Maybe it is the loss of his former partner and safety blanket in Dan Girardi. It’s possible he is pressing and trying too hard. Is the leadership mantle too heavy for him to wear? Regardless, you can’t make that play. Dave Maloney pointed out in the post-game show that the whole game-winning sequence was set up by a bad read by McD creating the icing before the game. Instead of getting the puck to Mats Zuccarello, who could hold the puck and circle back in the zone, allowing McD to change, McD sent an ill-advised pass to Mika Zibanejad, resulting in the icing.
With Kessel and Evgeni Malkin pressuring him, McD tried to make a play. You never try to pass the puck in front of your net with the opponent standing right there. Go around the boards hard either way and at worst, the best is out of the zone, and if it works the way you hope, it’s a 2-on-1 the other way. A brutal play and loss, which McD realized right away and indicated as such after the game.
5v5 Time on Ice - that’s on AV. The blender resulted in some odd lines. How Buchnevich could play so little on 5v5 is staggering. His reaction after his PPG was so muted, you almost wondered if he cared or was so beaten down by the lack of ice time that it caused that type of reaction. I get rewarding players, and several who were horrible to start the season played better, including Jimmy Vesey and Desharnais, but how does Buch get such little ice time?
The end result was instead of an emotion win that maybe could have propelled the team forward, they are left to answer questions as to what happened and why. Many of the positives will get lost in the wash and outweighed by the negatives and loss. It’s now back to the drawing board with the Islanders in town on Thursday.
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