50 Rangers shots as the Devils steal a game (sort of)
By Steve Paulus
On the scoreboard it will look like a one goal win for the New Jersey Devils,but the 4-3 score doesn’t tell the story. The New York Rangers lost to the Devils despite pouring 50 shots at Mackenzie Blackwood. It was a scintillating performance by the Devils netminder, his third in a row. But the loss cannot be pinned just on Blackwood’s goaltending.
The Devils came out fast and got on the scoreboard in the first minute. The Devils were very opportunistic and were able to counterpunch whenever the Rangers pulled close. Yes, the Rangers scored twice on the power play, but they had six chances and should have/could have scored a least one more. And the Blueshirts were helped by a disallowed goal when it was ruled offside after a Rangers’ challenge.
One thing is for certain, the shortened training camp schedule has hampered Mika Zibanejad’s timing. With only a couple real practices and now, three games, he is still getting into prime game shape. One concern is he might have been injured at the end of the game when he lost an edge and slid into the boards and had to stay off the ice. There was no word on his condition.
A clearly frustrated David Quinn blamed the loss on the bad start, something reinforced by Chris Kreider and Jacob Trouba in post game interviews. Quinn said “The real story was the start of the game for us. After the eight minute mark, we started playing well and we did good things in the second and third, but not enough.”
He also talked about the Devils goals. “You just can’t give up goals the way we did. Their goals were too easy.” He concluded “We played 48 minutes instead of 60 and we just are not going to have a chance to win night in night out if that’s how we’re going to do it.”
All in all, it was a frustrating night. It’s simple to blame it on a hot goalie, but the Blueshirts didn’t help themselves by falling behind early and letting the Devils score whenever they got within a goal.