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New York Rangers: Not quite good enough in 4-3 OT loss to Tampa

By Steve Paulus

NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 27: New York Rangers right wing Pavel Buchnevich (89) skates with puck as Tampa Bay Lightning center Anthony Cirelli (71) defends during the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers NHL game on February 27, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY. (Photo by John Crouch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY - FEBRUARY 27: New York Rangers right wing Pavel Buchnevich (89) skates with puck as Tampa Bay Lightning center Anthony Cirelli (71) defends during the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers NHL game on February 27, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY. (Photo by John Crouch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /
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NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 27: Lightning and Rangers players fight during the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers NHL game on February 27, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY. (Photo by John Crouch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)
NEW YORK, NY – FEBRUARY 27: Lightning and Rangers players fight during the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers NHL game on February 27, 2019, at Madison Square Garden in New York, NY. (Photo by John Crouch/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images) /

Notes on the game

  • The Lightning came out swarming (it seems to be a Ranger trend) and they scored twice in the first period.  The Blueshirts were outshot 14-9 and it looked like it was going to be a blowout. The Rangers were playing with fire when Brady Skjei took a tripping penalty and the league’s best power play scored when J.T. Miller had a wide open net to put home a partially blocked shot.

    • But in the second,  the  Rangers again came out and scored a goal in the first minute of a period and again, it was

    Mika Zibanejad

    .  He scored on an outstanding pass from Vesey and actually had to roof a backhand past

    Andrei Vasilevskiy

    ,

  • Down 2-1 it was the Brendan Lemieux show and he showed why he has 64 minutes in penalties already this season for Winnipeg.  The oddity was Yanni Gourde picked a fight with him, then backed away when he realized it was Lemieux and instead jumped Pavel Buchnevich who did quite well for himself.

    • Another former Ranger came back to haunt the team as Dan Girardi finished a scoring play while the teams were playing four on four.

    Thirty seconds after the Girardi goal,  Jimmy Vesey scored on a power moved to the goal, outmuscling Norris Trophy winner

    Victor Hedman

    and putting the puck pas Vasilevskiy. It was quite a goal.

    At the 14:14 mark, Boo Nieved beat five Lightning players to the puck in front of their net and put a

    Ryan Strome

    pass into the net. It was a seeing eye shot as it hit the post and Vasilevsky’s skate before trickling over the goal line.The Rangers outshot the Lighting in the second period 17-8.

    After an evenly played, scoreless third period, the teams went to overtime.

    Nikita Kucherov

    leveled Vlad Namestnikov with what could have been called intereference.  He got the puck to a wide open Victor Hedman who scored on a helpless

    Alexandar Georgiev

    .  The Lighting had a team record ten straight wins.

  • There were a number of breakaways including one by Brendan Smith playing wing for the Rangers (two straight games with breakaways for smith)  and one that was saved by Georgiev in the overtime after a ghastly Ranger bad change that left Hedman all alone .

    • The Rangers played the Lightning pretty even.  They won 53% of their faceoffs and outshot Tampa 36-30.  Special teams did let the Rangers down.  Tampa scored on of of their three man advantages, but the Rangers were scoreless on six power plays.

    The Rangers are now 1-8 in overtime.  They still lead the league in shootout wins with six. they still seem a bit confused during the three-on-three. Tampa had a structure and took advantage of possession to make a change  and go in and score on an exhausted Ranger threesome.

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