Rangers lose to Sabres 3-2 as things get desperate

About the game

The Rangers had a good first period taking a 2-1 lead into the locker room.  The first goal was all Pavel Buchnevich as he took a Sabres clearing pass that hit Kreider’s skate and carried it deep into the Sabres’ zone.  Mika Zibanejad crashed the net, drawing the defense leaving Kreider wide open for the goal.

The Rangers actually controlled play before the goal. They had three of the first four shots on goal and won two of the first three draws.  It looked like restoring Buchnevich to the Zibanejad line was going to pay off.

Buffalo came back after the goal with some sustained pressure and then Jack Johnson took  a tripping penalty when he tried to hip check Rasmus Dahlin. It took a little over a minute for Dylan Cozens to ram home a shot from the slot to tie the game.  Former Ranger Eric Staal fed Cozens who was open in the slot.

K’Andre Miller gave the Rangers the lead, scoring with just seven seconds left in the period. It was a fourth line goal as Brendan Lemieux carried the puck into the offensive one and Colin Blackwell made the pass to Miller who fired it home from the blue line.

Here’s another look at the goal.

The Rangers carried the lead into the second period and things looked good when Buffalo took a too many men on the ice penalty.  The Rangers could muster nothing on the power play and when Jacob Trouba missed a pass, Tobias Rieder took off on a breakaway and he cleanly beat Alexandar Georgiev.  No Ranger got close to Reider and he was able to cut left and put the forehand by Georgiev.  That was the goal that deflated the Rangers.

About a minute later Miller took a somewhat soft crosschecking penalty and Jack Eichel scored his first goal of the season with another slot shot that Georgiev had no chance on.  Despite the lead being only one goal, if felt like five.

The third period was scoreless, but what was demoralizing was the complete inability of the Rangers to get anything going for the first ten minutes.   In fact, until they went on the power play in the last two minutes, they really had only two good shifts.  Every time they got into the offensive one, they were turned back, much too easily.  If they got it in deep, the Sabres iced the puck, knowing they would the faceoff and they did on three straight icings.

Taylor Hall took a boarding penalty  at the 18:23 mark and the Rangers had a two man advantage and got some good looks,but couldn’t get the equalizer.

It’s what Zibanejad said.  The team is trying too hard and making bad passes and not shooting when they should.   They are making it too easy for the opposition to win these games.