New York Rangers: After 2-1 loss to the Islanders, time to get serious

Stats

The Rangers outshot the Islanders 27-22 even though the Islanders had five power plays to the Rangers’ three.  It was really four power plays to two as each team had a man advantage that lasted all of four seconds.

The Rangers held the Islanders to only four shots with the man advantage in over six minutes of power play time.  The bad news is in 2:58 of power play time, the Rangers didn’t get a single shot on goal.

The team’s bugaboo all season came back to haunt them as they lost 35 of 63 faceoffs, a horrible 38% winning percentage.  The two veterans, Strome and Zibanejad had the worst nights on draws.  Strome finished with a 25% winning percentage and Zibanejad won only 31% of his 16 faceoffs.  Brett Howden won six of seven and Filip Chytil won 47% of his 15 draws, a marked improvement over the regular season.

The Islanders outhit the Rangers 25-18, led by tough guy Ross Johnston with seven. No Ranger had more than three hits.

The defense tandem of Adam Fox and Ryan Lindgren were on the ice for both of the Islander goals.  Fox was guilty of hanging at the blue line on the first goal and Andy Greene saw it and put a headman pass past Fox, leaving Lindgren to face a two on one.

On the second goal, Fox was pinching with the Rangers trailing with about four minutes left.  Toews got the breakaway on a great feed from Derrick Brassard.

Tony DeAngelo led all Rangers in ice time, playing 24:09 while Artemi Panarin had the most ice time of any forward (22:08).

It wasn’t a great performance by the Rangers’ two best players and you have to believe that Panarin and Zibanejad  are saving their best for when the games really count.

Other action

There were six exhibition games played on Wednesday.   In the East, the Lightning demolished the Panthers 5-0 and the Capitals edged the Hurricanes 3-2.   In the West, Colorado edged the Wild 3-2, the Blackhawks upset the Blues 4-0 and the Jets beat the Canucks.

The exhibition scheduled ends on Thursday with three more games, two in Edmonton and one in Toronto.

Looking ahead

In New York, Quinn had said that he was hoping to give the team a day off before they play on Saturday.  It remains to be seen if they will get the break or if Quinn will feel it’s necessary to work out any issues he saw in this game.

Again, it would have been nice to win, but the takeaway has to be that this was a perfect tuneup for playoff hockey.  It’s much better that the Blueshirts had to play this kind of opponent and get into a playoff mindset, never mind the final score.