For the second straight day the Rangers lost a close game to an Eastern Conference rival on Sunday afternoon, this time dropping a 5-3 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins at Madison Square Garden. New York was also beaten in overtime Saturday in Detroit, losing by a 3-2 score.
“It’s not a good feeling to lose two days in a row,” stated goaltender Henrik Lundqvist, who made 28 saves Sunday. “We did a lot of good things; and today I felt like the puck was just bouncing their way more than our way. They had the luck today.”
With the game tied and time winding down in the third period, Pittsburgh’s Matt Cullen threw a pass from behind the Rangers net out towards the slot and the puck banked off Rangers’ defenseman Marc Staal and over the goal line to put New York in a 4-3 hole at 11:09.
That fluky goal was the Penguins answer to Ryan McDonagh’s highlight-reel score six minutes earlier which had brought the Rangers back and tied the score. After a solid passing sequence up ice by J.T. Miller and Jesper Fast, McDonagh jetted up left wing with the puck, leaving Pittsburgh defenders in his wake. The Rangers captain then sped behind the Penguins cage and beat goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury with a wraparound goal, his ninth of the season, at 5:04 of the third.
Sidney Crosby’s empty net goal with 38.8 seconds remaining in regulation closed out the scoring.
“There were a couple bounces for them,” said Eric Staal, who played more than 17 minutes and won 10 of 14 face offs Sunday. “We worked really hard to get that big goal by Mac to tie it, and then we get that unfortunate bounce there. It’s tough no matter which way you lose–if you get smoked or of you lose in the last second. It’s no fun to lose.”
Despite playing fewer than 24 hours before in Detroit, the Rangers came out flying in the first period Sunday, and only Fleury’s brilliance between the pipes for Pittsburgh stood in their way of pulling away early and often in this one. Instead, despite registering 19 shots on goal, the Rangers found themselves in a 1-1 tie after 20 minutes of play; and when they followed up their great start with a dismal second period, the Blueshirts skated into the second intermission trailing 3-2.
“Well there’s definitely some concern in how we played in the second and third after a real strong first period where, other than our penalty killing, I thought we carried the play,” explained head coach Alain Vigneault. “We had some real good looks, were playing north-south quickly, were getting the pucks deep (in the first period). We just didn’t sustain it.”
Fleury was exceptionally sharp right from the get go, forced into making four tough saves on one shift less then two minutes into the game. The Derick Brassard line created plenty of havoc on its first shift of the afternoon, with Fast being denied in close on a pair of prime scoring chances.
That set the tone for the first period as the Rangers did an excellent job of dictating play and getting to the net, only to be frustrated by the extremely sharp Fleury, who calmly poked the puck off Chris Kreider’s stick on a breakaway five minutes into the contest, and a couple minutes later made a pair of big saves on Rick Nash from in tight during a Rangers power play.
New York–due in large part to Fleury–failed to score with 32 seconds of a two-man advantage early in the first. All of these missed opportunities added up and were the more frustrating when Pittsburgh’s Patric Hornqvist banked a bad-angle shot off the back of Lundqvist for a power play goal at 11:56 of the opening period.
The Rangers did pull even before the period was over as Kreider camped out by the blue paint and redirected a slick Derek Stepan pass into the cage with 1:54 remaining in the first. Kevin Klein–who earlier in the shift launched Hornqvist partially over the boards with a neat check–slipped a pass between a defender’s legs to Stepan in the right circle, and Stepan proceeded to also sneak a pass between a pair of Penguins legs to the wide-open Kreider.
The goal was Kreider’s 16th of the season, second in as many games, and fifth in the last nine matches. With the assist Stepan extended his scoring streak to five consecutive games.
“We definitely had a good first period,” offered Eric Staal. “We were on the attack and really pushing the pace of the game and got a lot of looks. Fleury was real good early.”
Despite tying the score and carrying play for most of the opening period, the Rangers could not get much going in period number two. Lundqvist faced higher quality scoring opportunities, making a clutch pad save after Olli Maata broke in alone at 4:36 and then later coming through with three stops in succession with Hornqvist on the doorstep at 10:49.
Pittsburgh’s Conor Sheary, though would score twice in the period, the first two-goal game of his young NHL career, at 7:30 and 15:55. The second of his goals came on a breakaway with a quick forehand snap shot to finish.
Sheary’s goals sandwiched a power play goal by Brassard at 8:59. After Stepan won a face off in the right circle, Keith Yandle slid a pass to Brassard whose slap shot ticked off Maata’s stick and changed direction on its way to passing a screened Fleury. For Brassard, who was back in the lineup after missing Saturday’s action due to the flu, the goal was his team-leading 25th of the season and extended his point scoring streak to four straight games..
Earning the primary assist was Yandle who recorded his 40th point of the season on the play, the sixth time in his career he has reached that total.
The third period began with some fireworks when Kreider and Pittsburgh’s Chris Kunitz exchanged angry words at the face off and then dropped the gloves for a fight near the Rangers bench. Two minutes later Brassard and Eric Fehr were whistled for coincidental minor slashing penalties.
Though they would eventually tie the score on McDonagh’s goal, Vigneault was concerned with the lack of opportunities the Rangers generated in the final two periods of play. New York was limited to only two shots on goal in the second period and just six in the third.
Vigneault tried to shake things up a bit by going with only three forward lines as the game progressed. The fourth line of Oscar Lindberg, Dominic Moore and Kevin Hayes saw very limited duty on Sunday with both Moore and Hayes playing fewer than six minutes in the contest.
“I just felt that going with a three-line rotation might give us a little jump,” explained Vigneault. “It’s something I don’t do very often, especially in a back-to-back, but I was trying to get us to play quicker and with the same jump we had in the first period.”
With just one win in their last four games (1-2-1) the Rangers head west for a three-game road trip to California this upcoming week. They will face the Ducks in Anaheim on Wednesday, the Kings in LA on Thursday, and close out the trip with a Saturday afternoon matinee in San Jose against the Sharks next Saturday.
Jim Cerny
BlueshirtsUnited.com
