The Rangers (10-8-4) choked away a 3-0 third-period lead to fall 4-3 to the Oilers on Saturday. One term used after the game to describe the team's play in that final frame was "passive." Whichever word you want to use, the end result was an epic-type collapse, leading to a two-game losing streak. New York gets a chance to right the ship Monday against New Jersey, who come in 14-1 in their last 15 games and lead the Metro division.
Game recap:
A few thoughts: 1) Offense- The Rangers were up 3-0 after two periods before the roof caved in. Alexis Lafreniere scored in the first after a beautiful feed from Adam Fox. Even after having a pair of goals - by Artemi Panarin (offside, close but confirmed by video replay) and Braden Schneider (goaltender interference, absolute garbage as he was pushed into Jack Campbell) - overtuned, the Rangers still led 3-0 after two. Chris Kreider - his tenth - and Julien Gauthier - new career-high of four - scored within 33 seconds of each other late in the second period to give the Blueshirts what looked like a safe lead. But the team took their foot off the gas pedal and got burned, seen by the fact the team managed only six shots on goal and zero high-danger scoring chances in the final period, according to Natural Stat Trick.
2) Quotes - all the below expressions of anger and disappointment sound great and show the frustration. But it's become lather, rinse and repeat since it's not the first time we have heard or seen this. Enough is enough. Figure this out and figure this out quickly or the season will be a bust. Whether it's the system - or lack thereof - the personnel, the coach or all of the above, what we have seen to date is unacceptable.
Playing 20 or 40 minutes of hockey is not good enough or acceptable. Getting off to slow starts way too often this year, though not the case Saturday, is not acceptable. Unable to stem the tide when it starts going south is not acceptable. Every single player and every single coach needs to look at themselves in the mirror and figure out what the heck is going wrong and find a way to fix it and now.. Whether it's meeting and talking as a team, which will be the case Sunday, or the coach actually taking some responsibility and making constructive adjustments or both, corrections are needed.
Larry Brooks summarized it well: “the Rangers became paid spectators. They didn’t put the puck in deep. They stopped pressuring the Oilers. They turned over the puck in the neutral zone. They opened the door.… Once the door was opened, Edmonton took advantage and kicked it door.
"We got put on our heels," captain Jacob Trouba said. "I don’t think we really got off them.""I don’t know what to say to you," coach Gerard Gallant said. "We talked about it in between periods. We talked to the players. Sometimes it just happens. It's disappointing. We had a couple of timeouts. We tried to reset and (say), 'Let’s get going again.' … But then they get four goals in the third period for no reason besides us giving them opportunities and two dumb penalties."
"I thought we played a great two periods – exactly how we wanted to play – and then we come out in the third period and get careless, sloppy a little bit. We always talk about putting pucks behind defensemen and make them play in their own zone. And when we turn pucks over there, they end up in the back of the net. They get momentum. We played too much time in the D zone and that's what happens."
"They (referring to the veteran leaders) better have a chat with them," he said. "There are a lot of guys responsible. It’s a team collapse."
“I don’t know whether it’s arrogance or what, but we consistently refuse to do the things we know we need to do to win games,… Chris Kreider told The Post. “We talk about it, we know what we need to do to close out games but we don’t do it…. I don’t know why. But it’s costing us games. Every loss, the same story.…
"We become a little bit too passive," Mika Zibanejad said. "You want to go for it. You want to keep playing like we did in the first two. It’s hard once you become as passive as we did – and that’s on us. I’m not saying that we should chase and risk for a fourth goal, but we stopped doing the things that we did in the first two periods. And that's a good team. You give them anything, they're going to take advantage of it – and they did."
3) Igor Shesterkin was a major reason why the score was 3-0 as he was brilliant the first two periods. But he too was not blameless in the loss. Evan Bouchard's two goals were scored thanks to screens, but both potentially and probably should have been stopped, especially the second one. Dylan Holloway's tying goal came about partially due to a horrific clear by Trouba, but Igor did not play the shot well and was beaten from a fairly sharp angle to give Edmonton three goals in 5:42 in the stanza, I know it seems blasphemous to blame Igor, especially seeing how good he was the first two periods, but he also didn't close out the contest well.
4) Panarin had a goal disallowed, extending his goalless streak to 12 games. He finished the game with two shots, which is not good enough from a player who is to be a scoring winger and skating on the top line, though one almost beat Jack Campbell. In addition, in order to make the change of moving Panarin to the top line, he had to shift to his off side, going from left to right wing.
As Vince Mercogliano noted, the Kreider-Zibanejad-Panarin trio wasn't on ice for any goals against, but they were out-chanced, 2-8, with four of Edmonton's scoring chances registering as high danger. During the game, Panarin moved back to the second line with Jimmy Vesey moving back up to the top line.
5) Ryan Lindgren was injured in a collision with Ryan Nugent Hopkins with 12:58 remaining and did not return to the game. As further evidence of his importance, Edmonton scored 30 seconds later and added the tying tally less than three minutes later. Of course, there is no guarantee that Lindgren would have been in the ice in either situation, but his absence had a material impact on the team defense. It’s fairly clear just how important Lindgren is to the back line, which was made even more apparent yesterday.