The Rangers lost a late lead for the second straight game, but pulled out the victory in the shootout. Tuesday, Tomas Hertl scores with 1.3 seconds to go to tie the game. Thursday, Rickard Rakell tallied with 26 seconds remaining, harkening back to the late-game issues that plagued New York the past several seasons. Mats Zuccarello and Mika Zibanejad scored in the shootout to back a strong Alexandar Georgiev in the Rangers’ win.
Game recap :
A few thoughts: 1) Brett Howden - a goal, on a nice top pass by Vesey, and assist to Hayes. Solid between the dots again. Seeing playing time in all situations, including late in the game. His line with Vesey and Jesper Fast were strong throughout the contest.
2) Georgiev - calm and patient between the pipes. Very little extra movement in net. Made several key saves throughout the game, including several fine stops, of the 28 he made in the win. Giving coach David Quinn and management confidence when they turn to him to give Henrik Lundqvist a game off.
3) Quinn focused on the positives after the win but recognizes the need to clean up the late game play. Hayes had the same sentiments on the late-game failures after the win. As Larry Brooks noted and this is an area we have had major concerns about the past few seasons, the 6-on-5 phobia that began in the 2017 playoffs, when the Blueshirts were victimized three times, and continued last year through four such blown leads, lives.
Tuesday, Neal Pionk was double-teamed begins the net and lost the puck and the coverage down low was weak. Yesterday, despite Howden winning a key draw, New York, hurt by Tony DeAngelo’s clear banking off an official, was unable to manage the late-game situation again. The end result was a brilliant cross-ice feed from Ryan Getzlaf to Rakell, but way too much space allowed in the middle of the ice by the two Blueshirts, allowing the pass to get through with little resistance.
“I’m going to [focus] on the resiliency,… said Quinn, whose team returns home a relevant 5-7-1, and 3-3-1 in the past seven. “We found a way and gutted it out. You have to manage to be able to get points when you don’t feel great and that’s what we did. You could tell at practice [Wednesday] that guys were tired at the end of a long trip.“We keep making progress. That’s what my focus is on.…
“Obviously this can’t keep happening,… Hayes said. “We need to close out games to be considered a winning team.…
4) Chytil still only saw 10:05 of playing time last night after seeing 8:53 against the Sharks. Benched for the final 14:05 of the third plus overtime at San Jose, Chytil saw his last shift with 10:01 remaining in the third against the Ducks. The good news was that Chytil saw some power play time last night, assisting on Hayes’ tally, and as you see from Fge quote below, Quinn is giving Chytil information as to what he needs to do to stay on the ice and also why he is handling the situation as he has, which I have noted, to me, is the right way of treating the young kids. Making sure they know why they are sitting and fixing bad habits before they become embedded and the norm are the keys.
“He’s 19, and there are going to be ups and downs. He and I talked about why he sat [against the Sharks]. It’s part of a long process. You don’t keep throwing young guys out there where that can create a little entitlement. They have to earn their keep.…