The Rangers dropped their second straight contest to the Capitals, falling 3-2 in overtime Wednesday. New York had 1-0 and 2-1 leads, losing the second advantage with 65 seconds remaining in the game, an age-old bug-a-boo coming back to bite them in 6-on-5 play. The Blueshirts now have five games left in the season.
Game recap:
Kevin Hayes gave New York a 1-0 lead with a power-play goal at 12:42 of the first period. The play was initially ruled no-goal but was then reviewed at 13:09 and determined to be a good goal, as the puck completely crossed the line, deflecting in off of Braden Holtby. Henrik Lundqvist preserved the lead with a glove save on Evgeny Kuznetsov's penalty shot at 13:25, making the same look almost easy. The shot was awarded after Rob O’Gara slashed Kuznetsov on a breakaway.
Washington tied it 1-1 at 19:27 of the first when Andre Burakovsky beat Lundqvist from the right face-off circle. After a neutral-zone turnover, Burakovsky’s shot deflected off John Gilmour’s stick and past Lundqvist for his 10th goal of the season. The puck didn't change direction much, and on first glance, looked like a shot that should have been saved. The teams played a scoreless second period.
Ryan Spooner gave New York (33-35-9) a 2-1 lead at 10:35 of the third period as his wrist shot beat Holtby to the wide side after he came up ice with eons of space.Brady Skjei assisted on both new York goals while Lias Andersson notched his first career assist on Spooner's tally. Then, the 6-on-5 goal happened. The officials likely missed a too many men on the ice penalty when Holtby was heading to the bench and Lars Eller coming on. Lo and behold, Eller tied the game at 2-2 at 18:55 of the frame.
Eller got position on Pionk, who overall played a pretty solid game but here, rather than playing positional hockey, checked Eller and then appear to lose his balance and snow angeled, as Rick Carpinello put it, leaving an open lane for the pass and space in front of the net. You could also argue Marc Staal could have been tighter, but that's nitpicking. Kuznetsov won it with a wrist shot 38 seconds into overtime circling in the offensive zone, faking the shot to create space, going around Mika Zibanejad, and beating Lundqvist. The play was created when Chris Kreider's pass for Zibanejad hopped over his stick and hit the linesman, enabling Kuznetsov to gather the puck and head up ice.
I saw a few people criticizing AV for having Pionk on the ice and taking Pionk to task. This was the perfect time to have Pionk out in that situation, When else should he get experience and try to learn how to play, but more important, how not to play? The team is playing out the string. You have a rookie d-man garnering experience, this is an area that he may be faced with in the future. Let him learn. The end result was far from optimal but he should know better for down the road what to do and what nit to do. Growing pains, live with it for a brighter tomorrow.
Here is the continuing run down for the last 16 games of the season. After losing to Winnipeg 3-0 on March 6, Tampa 5-3 on March 8 and Florida 4-3 in a shootout March 10, New York defeated Carolina 6-3 on the 12th and Pittsburgh 4-3 in overtime March 14. St. Louis defeated New York 4-3 on March 17 and the Rangers fell 5-3 Columbus (March 20) and Philly 4-3 on March 22 before defeating Buffalo 5-1 last Saturday, New York lost 4-2 to Washington on Monday at MSG and 3-2 Wednesday. They face Tampa tomorrow (last home game) and Carolina (road) on Saturdayto close out March. In April, New York faces the Devils, Islanders and Flyers, all on the road.
With less than two weeks left in the season, the Rangers sit in 22nd, Edmonton sits in 23rd one point behind with New York with the Islanders tied with the Oilers one point in back of the Blueshirts but with two fewer wins than Edmonton. Chicago is in 25th, at 72 points in 77 contests, but seeing how they have collapsed, expecting wins and a move up the standings is unlikely. Carolina is in 21st with 79 points in 77 games while Calgary has 80 points in the same amount of contests and sits 20th in the standings, but the Isles have their first round pick from the Travis Hamonic deal.