The New York Rangers couldn’t have written a crazier end to the year and to the Decade if they had tried after playing out an insane game against the Edmonton Oilers.
On the way to an ugly blowout, the New York Rangers displayed a bucketload of character to mount an unlikely and stunning comeback that ultimately fell just short.
In what was the final game of the year for the Blueshirts, they both put up an absolute stinker before threatening to stage the comeback of the Decade.
The game couldn’t have gotten off to a worse start for the Rangers, who allowed James Neal to score past Alexandar Georgiev with just 11 seconds on the board.
Neal added his second on the power play as poor execution in the faceoff circle continued to hurt the Blueshirts, while Ryan Nugent-Hopkins tipped a Ethan Bear shot past a clearly flustered Georgiev.
It only got worse for the Rangers in the second period as Edmonton scored another two goals on the power play thanks to Leon Draisaitl and James Neal, with the latter completing his second hat trick of the season.
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Josh Archibald made it 6-0 after capitalizing on another turnover which signalled the end of Georgiev’s night, and that’s when the fun really began.
When Chris Kreider buried a one-timer from an Artemi Panarin dish at the end of the middle frame, it looked to be nothing more than a mere consolation prize.
However, the Blueshirts have shown their heart time and time again this year and they came out fighting for their lives in the third period.
Ryan Strome proved a point against the team he struggled to make much of an impact with, dispatching a scorching one-timer past Mikko Koskinen.
That goal really galvanized the Rangers who kept on banging on the door as Marc Staal scored a rare goal, before Artemi Panarin completed a four-point night thanks to a superb solo effort.
And the impossible all of a sudden seemed possible when Mika Zibanejad made it a one-goal game with minutes left, putting the puck past a sprawling Koskinen.
But, scoring five unanswered goals in a hurry seemed to drain the Rangers who couldn’t quite complete the great escape and Kailer Yamamoto iced the game for Edmonton with an empty-netter.
It was a hell of a game to sign off 2019 with and we had a few takeaways to unpack and go through from an exhilarating contest…