More questions for the Rangers after a 5-3 loss to the Flyers

The New York Rangers lost a crucial home game to the Philadelphia Flyers with Henrik Lundqvist starting in goal for the first time in almost a month.

More questions than answers face the New  York Rangers after a disheartening loss to the Flyers.  Philadelphia swept both ends of a home and home, outscoring the Blueshirts 10-5 in the process.

Unlike Friday, when a one-sided score didn’t reflect the closeness of game, this game the score was closer than the game.  The Flyers totally dominated special teams play in the first two periods and a furious comeback by the Rangers in the third period made it a two goal game.

For Henrik Lundqvist, it was hard to judge his performance.  The Flyers were given a power play 23 seconds into the game and scored and the Ranger defense was missing for most of the first two periods.   Lundqvist allowed one even strength goal and and shut the Flyers out in a very strong third period.

Coming out of this start there would be reason to believe that Lundqvist may not start again this season or he could be in net on Tuesday against St. Louis. While there was some rust in his play, he was hung out to dry repeatedly, especially on the Philadelphia power plays.

Mika Zibanejad had a fabulous game and could have had five goals instead of the two he scored.  At long last Anthony DeAngelo got on the scoreboard against his former favorite team.  The Rangers finally got going when Quinn paired Zibanejad and Panarin and benched Ryan Strome who had an awful game.

The biggest question is how the Rangers could come out in such an important game and play so badly.  The irony is that the Blueshirts played the Flyers evenly five-on-five.  In fact, the Rangers had 46 shot attempts at even strength compared to 24 for Philadelphia.  They had 17 high danger scoring chances compared to eight for the Flyers, all according to naturalstattricks.com.

It was special teams play that killed the Rangers in the first two periods when the Flyers built up a 5-1 lead.  On five power plays the Flyers had 16 shot attempts of which nine were high danger.  They converted on three of them.  After two power play goals in the first period they also scored a shorthanded goal, a turn of events that absolutely crushed the Rangers.

It was a golden opportunity lost for the Rangers, but as much as they need to win games, their rivals need to win as well and they haven’t been.  The Blueshirts will be watching the scoreboard to see how the Blue Jackets do at home against Vancouver.  If they lose that game, despite losaing both ends of the series with the Flyers, the Rangers will have lost no ground to Columbus and only one point to the Hurricanes.

Still the questions remains.  Was that the last we will see of Henrik Lundqvist?  And are the Rangers the team that looked outclassed in the first two periods or are they the dynamic team that dominated the third period?

The game

The game got off to an auspicious start when Ryan Lindgren was sent off for hooking Travis Kocnecny just 23 seconds in   Konecny had got a step on the Ranger defense and Lindgren had to slow him dow.  Let’s just saw that the Flyer sold the hook well.

The Rangers were able to kill the first 90 seconds as Lundqvist made one outstanding save, but at 1:52 Matt Niskanen was able to put home the rebound of a shot by Nicolas Aube-Kubel.  It was a good first stop, but Niskanen was perched on the doorstep and had the easy score.

Of all the scenarios you would have wanted the least when starting a goalie after a long layoff, it was a power play for a red hot team. No such luck.

The Rangers had the next power play and got some great shots off, but Carter Hart was able to stop them all including one by Buchnevich that went off his shoulder as well as a point blank shot from the slot by Kaapo Kakko.   After the penalty expired, Hart stopped Zibanejad on a breakaway.

Then it was back on the penalty kill for the Rangers as Ryan Strome took a bad hooking penalty on Jakub Voracek.  This time it took 33 seconds for Sean Couturier to put the puck behind Lundqvist at the 11:19 mark.   Voracek took a bad angle shot that Lundqvist kicked out, but right to Couturier who had a wide open net.

At the 16:16 mark the Rangers got a life when Kevin Hayes took a tripping penalty, but they turned the tides on the Rangers when Michael Raffl scored shorthanded.

Raffl checked Ryan Strome and stripped  him of the puck and broke in on an odd man rush with Derek Grant.  Grant got the puck to an unguarded Raffl who backhanded it by Lundqvist.

It was a morale crushing goal and the Garden crowd was clearly no happy with the Rangers’ effort.

The second period got off to an awful start when Derek Grant scored the only even strength goal of the contest.

The Flyers were on a two-on-one break when Brett Howden tried an ill advised body check giving Philadelphia the odd man rush.  Lundqvist didn’t play this one well as Grant slipped the backhander past him.

This was an avoidable goal.  Adam Fox had pinched and Brett Howden was supposed to cover for him, but decided to throw a hard body check.  The Flyers broke out with momentum and scored.

The Rangers got a life when they scored their own power play goal at 12:34 of the second period.

Tony DeAngelo finally got his first point against the Flyers in seven games, with the secondary assist on the goal.  ZIbanejad made a great redirection on a excellent pass from Artemi Panarin.

Any momentum from that goal disappeared exactly three minutes later when Travis Konecny scored the Flyers’ third power play goal to go up 5-1.  It was Ryan Strome again taking the penalty, this time a lazy slashing penalty.   The Flyers won the faceoff and it took all of five seconds for them to score on a deflection of a shot by Voracek.  Game, set, match.

The Rangers mounted a comeback in the third period, mostly because of the play of ZIbanejad.  The Flyers were also guilty of sitting on the lead and they responded to the Rangers’ pressure by taking penalties.

They scored a quick power play goal at 5:33.

After Matt Niskanen was called for interfering with Pavel Buchnevich, it was Buchnevich who redirected a Tony DeAngelo shot past  Hart just 12 seconds into the man advantage.

At 11:29, the Flyers were called for another penalty when Nate Thompson tripped Kaapo Kakko and this time it too the Rangers 70 seconds to score.

Brett Howden kept the puck in the net and got the puck to Panarin who made the pass to Zibanejad who put a backhand past Hart for his second goal of the game. It was 5-3, a two goal game.

That goal got the crowd really going, but it was too little too late.  The Rangers pressed the action for the last eight minutes, but were unable to get any closer and  the game ended with a

Notes on the game

• Artemi Panarin finished with two assists and has a 13 game point scoring streak, longest of his career.   He now has 90 points on the season, the first Ranger to  hit that mark since Jaromir Jagr since 2006-07.
• With two goals and an assist, Mika Zibanejad has scored 14 goals and added 14 assists for 28 points in his last 18 games.  Over 82 games that would be a 64 goal, 128 point season.
• Anthony DeAngelo finally got some points against the Flyers, his first in seven games.  He had two assists, finally breaking his scoreless streak against his former favorite team.
• DeAngelo played 27:13, the most of any Ranger and also the most he has played in one game in his career.
• During the third period, David Quinn shortened his bench and paired Panarin and Zibanejad on one line and also paired Adam Fox and DeAngelo in an effort to boost offense.
• Ryan Strome sat for most the rest of the game after taking his second penalty.  He was fighting the puck all night and took two costly penalties. He didn’t see a shift in the third period.
• Brendan Lemieux took an unsportsmanlike penalty and an additional ten minute misconduct when he tried to pick a fight with Nicolas Aube-Kubel.   He had sparred with the Flyer in the faceoff circle earlier in the game and had been admonished by the referee.  It was not a matter of if he would take a penalty, it was a matter of when.   Quinn sat him for the first half of the third period after he came back from the misconduct.
• For the first time in three games, the Rangers kept Kevin Hayes off the scoresheet.   During the game, the Rangers played a video tribute to Hayes and Flyers coach Alain Vigneault, recognizing their contributions as Blueshirts.
• This was the third time the Rangers have allowed as many as three power play goals.  The last time was on New Year’s Eve in Edmonton.  They allowed five PP goals to Tampa in November.
• This was the second time this season that the Rangers have scored three power play goals in a game.  They have lost both games.
• Lundqvist stopped 21 of 26 shots.  There were nine high danger shots against at even strength and he stopped eight.  He didn’t do as well on the penalty kill, stopping two of five high danger shots.