New York Rangers lose a 3-2 heartbreaker against Buffalo

The New York Rangers were dealt a heartbreaking defeat at home to the Buffalo Sabres, just two days after a mighty victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Zemgus Girgensons, Sam Reinhart, and former Blueshirt Jimmy Vesey all found the back of the net for the Buffalo Sabres as they defeated the New York Rangers, 3-2, at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.

The Blueshirts didn’t play well.  It was their fifth game in eight nights, but the Sabres played last night so that is no excuse.  The fact is that this was a game that the Rangers needed to win and they didn’t wake up until it was too late.

Carter Hutton, who made 37 saves on 39 shots faced, earned his seventh win of the season as Buffalo improved to 24-23-8. The Rangers fell to 26-23-4 in a game that featured 25 saves by Alexander Georgiev. Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider scored for the Rangers.

The first period ended 1-0 in favor of Buffalo after Girgensons’ goal 10:26 into the game. Taking advantage of a poor line change by the Rangers, Girgenson took a pass from Colin Miller and forced his way to the crease for the score.

However, the shots on goal per team were even at 6-6 in the game’s opening 20 minutes.

In the beginning half of the second period, Phil Di Giuseppe went off to the locker room with an undisclosed injury. Soon after, Artemi Panarin took the first penalty of the game.

After Marc Staal couldn’t capitalize on a quick opportunity while short-handed, a tired-looking Rangers penalty kill had to rush back, but were rescued by Georgiev on a beautiful stretch save.

Eventually, Di Giuseppe returned to the game and found himself at left wing on the third line, with Kaapo Kakko on the right wing and Filip Chytil at center.

The Di Giuseppe-Chytil-Kakko line held the fort for a few minutes, until a bad turnover by Ryan Lindgren eventually led to a Sam Reinhart backhand goal over Georgiev’s shoulder and a 2-0 lead for the Sabres.

The Rangers headed into the break down 2-0, being outshot 16-10 in the period and 22-16 for the game.

To start the third, the Rangers put plenty of pressure on Hutton, winning the shots on goal contest 12-2 by  the 11:20 mark of the game’s final 20 minutes.

That changed in a hurry.

That change began with a strike from Vesey, who took advantage of Jacob Trouba‘s turnover to Jack Eichel and gave Buffalo a 3-0 lead.  EIchel’s headman pass to Vesey took advantage of another slow Rangers change.

The turnaround seemed to begin with 2:53 remaining in the game, when Panarin gave Mika Zibanejad a beautiful feed that led to New York’s first goal of the game.

The Rangers immediately called a timeout.

Kakko drew a late penalty on Rasmus Ristolainen while the Rangers’ net was empty. That led to heavy pressure in front of Hutton, which led to Kreider’s 20th goal of the season. It came with controversy with a brief review, but it was determined that the puck completely cross the goal line.

After keeping the gameplay during final moments of the game against the boards. the Sabres pulled away with a 3-2 win over the Blueshirts at MSG, despite being outshot 39-28.