New York Rangers: A 1-0 loss to Dallas helps the lottery race

The less said about the New York Rangers 1-0 loss to Dallas, the better.  It’s enough to acknowledge that it was another game the team could have won, but this time it was the officiating that took the game out of their hands.

The New York Rangers lost another one-goal game, a shutout to Ranger killer Ben Bishop. It was a tightly played  game with opportunities for both teams, outstanding goaltending and stellar penalty killing.

The only goal came in the second period when John Klingberg beat an excellent Alexandar Georgiev with a screen shot after a missed clearing opportunity by Pavel Buchnevich.

The baby Ranger lineup was just a bit older as Boo Nieves played instead of Lias Andersson.  David Quinn shook up the lineup, moving Kreider down in the rotation and playing Buchnevich on the top line with Mika Zibanejad and Jimmy Vesey.   Nothing really worked as one of the better defensive teams in the NHL rode a one goal lead to victory.

The craziness all happened midway through the third period, when Mika Zibanejad was tossed from the game for throwing a hip check. He was given a five minute major for boarding Radek Faksa.  Faksa had been hit by Chris Kreider and was going down.  Zibanejad did one of his patented hip checks intended to keep the player away from the puck, but Faksa was already doubled over from the Krieder check and Zibanejad’s check on Faksa’s shoulder drove him into the boards.   Look at the play and you decide:

To make matters worse, the penalty came when the Rangers were on the power play.  The referees then compounded the problem by calling an incredibly soft slashing penalty on Brady Skjei who actually made an outstanding stick check on a play that normally ends up as a hooking or holding penalty.

So, with ten minutes left in the game and the Rangers on the power play, they found themselves without their best offensive forward, down two men and on their heels for most of the remainder of the game.

The Rangers penalty kill was outstanding, but they couldn’t convert on four power play opportunities.  They are now 0-15 in their last five games.  Quinn called out the power play as the key reason they lost, though he also felt that the team was flat and there was a lack of effort from some players.  Much of that can be attributed to Dallas’ stifling defense, third best in the NHL.

They came close to tying the game with the goalie pulled on a Filip Chytil shot, but they were called for more penalties when Ryan Strome checked Jason Dickinson into Bishop and the game ended with a massive pile-up and scrum.

The Rangers lost another game that they could have won, but in this case, blaming the officiating is completely legitimate.