The Rangers kicked off their four-game West Coast road trip with a dud, losing 5-1 to the short-handed Knights. After carrying play the first 10-11 minutes of the contest, Vegas capitalized on a bad change, poor awareness and attention in the neutral zone and a somewhat weak goal to grab the lead they never relinquished. Mistakes again were at the forefront of most of the four non, empty-net goals allowed. New York will look to rebound Saturday in LA.
Game recap:
Lindgren-Fox Miller-Trouba Gustafsson-Schneider
Shesterkin Quick
Scratches: Pitlick (who could dress Friday in place of several on the bottom-six), Jones LTIR: Chytil
A few thoughts: 1) Capitalize on changes - the Knights, the Rangers didn't. New York was by far the better team the first half of the first period. But Vegas basically played rope-a-dope with the Blueshirts, absorbing blows before returning the favor and scoring on a pair of weaker chances. New York peppered Logan Thompson with a lot of shots, few were high-danger opportunities, allowing him to settle into the game. The puck possession and opportunities were nice, but we all kind of had the feeling as this continued that if the Rangers didn't score during this initial foray, Vegas would grab the lead.
This is exactly what happened. As Vince Mercogliano wrote, the combination of costly puck decisions, poor defense against the rush and not enough timely saves in those situations has been debilitating. All three aspects were on display yesterday, with the latter two contributing to Jonathan Marchesssault's goal to open the scoring. New York had chances in center ice to blunt the rush and K'Andre Miller got a piece of the original pass in the D-zone but it deflected back to the Marchessault. He fed Nicolas Roy, who then dished it back in tight to Marchessault, whose shot snuck by Igor Shesterkin between the blocker and body. A tough chance but one that you need your goalie to make.
Vegas's second goal also came on the rush. Marchessault curled back in the neutral zone and found Roy streaking wide open near the blue line. He beat Trouba wide and then found a streaking Ivan Barbeshev, who got past Kaapo Kakko on the wing. Barbashev turned his skate to deflect the puck in, but there was no distinct kicking motion, similar to Chris Kreider's goal last week. All of a sudden, it was 2-0 Vegas and that good start to the game was a memory.
2) Compounding mistakes - New York had a pretty good second period, but it all went for naught in 25 seconds. On the power play, Barbashev found open space sliding down the slot and beat Shesterkin. The Rangers were in good position for most of that short sequence but lost contact, containment and awareness of where Barvashev was, giving him time and space.
Then, for the eighth time this season, late that number sink in, the Rangers allowed a second goal less than 30 seconds after the prior goal surrendered. Keegan Kolesar tipped in a shot from Kaedan Korczak and it was pretty much turn off your TVs and go to bed on the East Coast, Mika Zibanejad got a window-dressing PPG early in the third but the Rangers were unable to dent the scoreboard anymore. Ex-Ranger Brett Howden finished the scoring - of course he did - with an empty-net tally.
3) Shesterkin - you know right away when he is dialed in or not. Little work early may have taken some edge off but that's an excuse. You know your goalie to make a big save at a big moment. Unfortunately, that has been the case this season with Igor. Arthur Staple laid out the issues he has had this year and impact on the team nicely in his post-game recap. We thought the games against Washington and Seattle were a sign that he had turned the corner. Last night was an indication he is not there yet. Whether he will be at all remains to be seen.
Inconsistency has plagued Shesterkin through 29 starts this season. He’s had two superb stretches, a four-game run that preceded his two-week injury absence in November and then a five-game run Dec. 16-30 over which he allowed just eight goals. But in the 11 starts when Shesterkin has been the losing goalie, he’s allowed at least four goals in all of them — he gave up four or more in 12 starts total last season and the Rangers won four of those.Another tough stat, courtesy of Clear Sight Hockey: Shesterkin has allowed 5.41 more goals than expected when the Rangers are trailing, and that doesn’t include Thursday’s data. His past two seasons, when he’s been at his best, he’s contested everything no matter the score. This season, whether through bad luck or poor play by his teammates or not enough focus, he’s been at his worst when the Rangers are trailing, which leaves them very little room for a comeback.