New York Rangers: Good game, bad loss 3-1 to the St. Louis Blues

The game

The Rangers knew they had to get out to a fast start and they started with a strong effort. In the first 11 minutes, the Blueshirts had nine shot attempts to five for the Blues and did an excellent job keeping St. Louis on the perimeter. They finally got a break when Robert Bortuzzo got called for tripping and the Rangers went on the power play.

After Mika Zibanejad won the faceoff, the Rangers kept the puck in the Blues’ zone and were guilty of overpassing, but it worked when Pavel Buchnevich fed Ryan Strome who made the pass to the wide open Zibanejad.

For Zibanejad it was his team leading 33rd goal and it gave the Rangers the lead, the question was whether they could hold on to it.

The first period ended 1-0 and the teams were in a virtual statistical dead heat with each getting seven shots on goal.  Other than the goal, the highlight was a massive hit by Ryan Lindgren on  Oskar Sundqvist with a minute left in the period.

The lead lasted only two and a half minutes into the second period.  Ryan Strome was called for slashing Ryan O’Reilly just 1:13 into the period and after the Rangers were able to kill off the first 1:15, Colton Parayko tied the score.

It was a broken play as Zibanejad had a chance to clear, but couldn’t get it out of the Rangers’ zone.  Parayko picked up the puck and put it past Georgiev.   That’s three straight penalties for Strome that ended up with pucks in the back of the Rangers’ net.

Parayko had been ill and was a game time decision, just like Sean Couturier for the Flyers on Sunday.  Both ailing players scored key goals.  Meanwhile, Georgiev made his saves of the game just before Parayko scored as he stopped three straight shots from David Perron and Jaden Schwartz.

From that point it was another evenly played, at times, thrilling period. In fact, after Ryan O’Reilly won a faceoff at 8:42, there wasn’t another play stoppage until an icing at 19:37, an amazing 10:55 without a whistle.

Shots were 15-14 in favor of the Blueshirts and the Rangers led in blocked shots and takeaways.

It was more of the same in the third period until a seemingly innocuous play resulted in the winning goal.

It was a simple wrap around by Brayden Schenn , but for some reason Georgiev did not go down to protect the goal and the puck hit his right foot and bounced into the net. It was a bad goal for Georgiev and a lucky goal for Schenn, but that’s what you get when you just put the puck on net, something the Rangers don’t do enough of.

The last thing you want to do is give the defending champions a  one goal lead with ten minutes left in the third period and as much as the Blueshirts pushed, they were unable to put one past Jordan Binnington and the Blues sealed the win with an empty net goal by Jaden Schwartz with only six seconds left.

It was a bitter defeat for the Rangers.  They played well enough to win, but it was St. Louis who scored the timely goals, the sign of a championship team.

Notes on the game

• This was the 6,500th game played by the New York Rangers. It was their 2,692nd loss compared to 2,854 wins and 954 ties or overtime losses.
• Artemi Panarin‘s 13 game point scoring streak ended with this game.  It was only the 14th time in 66 games that he has been held without a point.
• With the loss, the Blues swept the season series, the first time that they have done that since 2013-14.
• Although the Rangers were called for only one penalty, the Blues were able to score on that lone power play.  They have given up five power play goals their last nine times shorthanded.
• Kaapo Kakko has scored only two goals in his last 45 games.  He had several opportunities and was stoned by Binnington on one attempt, but the Rangers need him to break out big time before it gets too late.
• This was the first game in a month in which the opposition didn’t get as many as ten shots in any period. In the 12 games prior, they had allowed over ten shots in all three periods in seven games. They really tightened up their defense in this game.
• Bryaden Schenn’s game winning goal was the fifth straight game he has scored in.
• This was Alexandar Georgiev’s first career regulation loss to St. Louis.  It was a shame that the game winner was a soft goal considering how well he played.
• Although the Rangers had three power plays to the Blues one, there were several calls there were not made that could have resulted in Ranger power plays.  David Quinn wouldn’t get into it specifically except to say “when that team is allowed to do some of the things they do, and they compete their asses off,  so I’m to taking anything away from them….and I loved how we fought through it, kept playing through it…on to Washington.”
• One non-call in particular was a slash on Brendan Smith on a third period rush into the Blues’ zone.  It was a wicked slash to his hands and made Strome’s second period slashing penalty look like a love tap.
• The Rangers should be proud of the way they played. Quinn put it best. “That was a big boy hockey game right there. There wasn’t a lot of room out there, there was a playoff feel to it, and unfortunately a bounce ends up in the back of our net which was the difference in the game.”  He continued “A game of that magnitude where there was such little room, not many scoring chances and the margin for error is so small, unfortunately, we were on the wrong end of it.”

My three stars of the game

1. In a game when the defense shined, it was Tony DeAngelo who led the way.  He played a tough, physical game and drove the offense.  He played 22:25, second most of any defenseman and had four shots.  DeAngelo gets knocked for his defense, but in this game, he held his own defensively while still leading the offense.
2. The anchor of the defense was Jacob Trouba who played an unheralded game, but was on the ice for every important shift.  This was the kind of game that Trouba was brought to New York to play and he came through.
3. Brendan Smith takes a lot of heat, but this was his best game on defense in a couple years.  Not only was he solid on defense, but he also contributed to the offense, leading two rushes into the Blues zone that were nearly goals.

The official three stars

1. Jaden Schwartz
2. Jordan Binnington
3. Colton Parayko

What’s next

From the frying pan into the fire.  The Washington Capitals are the Rangers’ next rival, coming to Madison Square Garden on Thursday.  It’s a must win for the Blueshirts.  They cannot continue to count on their playoff rivals to keep losing.