It was a first loss of the year for the New York Rangers on Saturday after they were beaten 4-1 by the Edmonton Oilers at Madison Square Garden.
Although not a bad effort by any stretch of the imagination, the New York Rangers did see some of their biggest flaws exposed and it will serve as a crucial learning curve going forward.
Whether or not having a week-long layoff played a part is hard to tell, but you also have to give credit to the Edmonton Oilers who are 5-0-0 to start the year and they set an NHL record with their fifth straight come-from-behind win to start the season.
The highlight of the game for the Rangers was no doubt the Kaapo Kakko era officially getting underway after the rookie scored his first goal in the National Hockey League, and we’ll get on to that in more detail shortly.
But that was pretty much it for the Blueshirts in terms of moments to celebrate, with the Oilers emerging as the better team in most if not all departments.
Kakko’s welcome to the NHL moment gave the Rangers the lead at 18:28 in the first period, but they were unable to build on that and the momentum shifted in the second period.
Following a rare loss in the faceoff circle for Mika Zibanejad, Oscar Klefbom wristed one beyond the brilliant Henrik Lundqvist to tie the score.
And then it was time for the deadly duo of Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl to take over and stamp their authority on proceedings.
McDavid scored the go-ahead goal at 9:44 in the third period and two tucks from Draisaitl got the job done for the unbeaten Oilers, while inflicting a first loss of the year on the New York Rangers.
Here were our main takeaways from Saturday’s 4-1 loss to the Edmonton Oilers…