New York Rangers lose 9-3 to Tampa, a game to forget

The New York Rangers suffered a beating at the hand of the resurgent Tampa Bay Lightning, losing 9-3 in a game that was out of reach after just seven minutes. It was the Rangers’ worst game of the year.

The New York Rangers lost a game that was going to be tough to win.  To make matters worse, Kaapo Kakko was a late scratch with the flu after the pregame warm-ups.  Without Mika Zibanejad and Kakko, their offense took a big hit, but it was Zibanejad they missed more for his defense.

A shot from the point and two quick power play goals spelled an early exit for Alexandar Georgiev and the game quickly got out of hand.   It was 4-1 after one period, 8-1 after two periods.  It was a rout.

To their credit, the Blueshirts showed some spirit and played a better third period with Georgiev back in net.  Tampa definitely took their foot off the gas pedal and the Rangers outscored the Bolts 2-1 in the third period to make the score somewhat presentable.

Of all the Rangers, Artemi Panarin played his heart out and in a game when the Rangers were outscored by six goals, his plus/minus was +3.   Filip Chytil scored two goals and Georgiev recovered with a solid third period.   Those were the positives.

The power play was ineffective in four chances and the penalty kill was abysmal, allowing five goals in eight chances, though one was with the Rangers down two men.

The Blueshirts have shown the ability to come back from bad losses and they conclude their road trip with a game against the Panthers on Saturday, a chance to atone for this loss. It won’t be easy.

The game

The game was  even for the first two and a half minutes.  That’s when Brayden Point won a faceoff and got the puck to Luke Schenn who took a shot from the blue line that eluded Georgiev.  The goalie was partially screened and it was the first goal for Schenn since March 2018.

At the five minute mark the Lightning had three quick shots in succession after Brendan Lemieux  was getting a penalty for cross checking Mikhail Sergachev.  Alex Killorn had the last two shots, whacking away at Georgiev and making contact with the goalie’s head.  Tony DeAngelo jumped in to defend his goalie, but it was ill-advised and he was called for a slashing penalty.

Down two men, it took all of five seconds for the Lightning to score as Killorn put the puck home on assists from Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.

39 seconds later, it was Kucherov’s turn. 22 seconds later, Ondrej Palat walked in and put the puck past Georgiev.   Three goals in 61 seconds.  Four goals on eight shots.  David Quinn called a timeout and replaced Georgiev with Henrik Lundqvist.  If you missed it, here’s the carnage.

That stemmed the tide as Lundqvist made seven saves and the Blueshirts actually got on the board when Chris Kreider slipped a puck under Andrei Vasilevskiy‘s pads.  Ryan Lindgren did a great job getting the puck off the boards to Panarin who made the headman pass to Kreider.

The second period, with Lundqvist in net, was a horror show. The Rangers took their first too many men on the ice penalty of the season and it took 35 seconds for Steven Stamkos to make them pay with a blistering one-timer from the faceoff circle that Lundqvist had no chance on.

Three minutes later it was Patrick Maroon and four minutes after that, Kevin Shattenkirk scored.  With about a minute left in the period,  the game turned chippy.  Brendan Lemieux took a two minute penalty for goalie interference and then fought with Ryan McDonagh.

It took the Lightning six seconds to score their fourth power play goal as Alex Killorn netted his second of the game.

Micheal Haley got into a fight with Luke Schenn and of course was hit with the extra two minutes with 44 seconds left in the second period.  The Rangers escaped unscathed, outscored 4-0 and outshot 12-8.    After two periods, the Lightning had scored eight goals on 28 shots. a 29% success rate.

The third period was considerably calmer, though the Lightning outshot the Rangers 17-10.   The Rangers got on the board quickly when Filip Chytil  scored at the 2:22 mark on a feed from Hajek after Panarin carried the puck into the zone.

The Rangers took three consecutive penalties, with Ryan Lindgren going off on a soft tripping penalty and then Jesper Fast took a double minor for high sticking Nikita Kucherov.  The Lindgren penalty was barely a trip and Kucherov skated into Fast’s stick, but all of the calls were going against the Blueshirts and it took 35 seconds for  Tampa to notch their ninth and final goal.  Yanni Gourde used his speed to get past Lindgren and put the puck over Georgiev’s shoulder.

At 15:28, Chytil finished off the scoring, tapping the rebound of a Pavel Buchnevich shot into the open net.

It was a bad effort by the Rangers.  While the penalty kill was helpless against an elite offensive team, the Rangers didn’t exhibit much of Quinn’s “battle level” and the Lightning had their way with the Rangers in the offensive zone on numerous opportunities.

In his post-game comments,  Quinn sounded philosophical.  “Listen we lost one game, I know obviously the way it went it was embarrassing and certainly not anything anybody’s proud of  but we’ve got to dust ourselves off and be ready to play on Saturday.  At the end of the day, that’s what it’s about.  We’ve been playing some pretty good hockey  up to this point and we’ve got to move past this.”