Rangers lose to Sabres 3-2 as things get desperate

Notes on the game

• The Rangers have now lost four in a row. They lost four consecutively last season only once, coincidentally in games 3-6, same as this year.
• Special teams are failing the Blueshirts.  They have scored four goals on 26 power plays, a paltry 15.4% success rate, 20th in the NHL.  They’ve killed 14 of 20 penalties, a 70% success rate, 27th best in the NHL. Ouch.
• It doesn’t help that the Rangers have had 13 minutes more on the power play than minutes killing penalties.  If they could get their PP rate higher, they might win some of these one goal games.
• Tobias Reider’s goal won’t count as a shorthanded goal, but that ‘s what it was.  He’s a shorthanded goal expert. In his rookie season he scored twice on the same penalty kill, the only rookie to ever do that. In last year’s Stanley Cup Playoffs he had three shorties for Calgary, tying an NHL playoff record.
• Adam Fox led all defenders with 21:43 minutes of ice time. Artemi Panarin played 23:14 , over four minutes more than any other forward.
• Fox and Panarin both had four game point scoring streaks stopped.
• Jacob Trouba led all Rangers with four hits. No one else had more than two.
• Alexandar Georgiev made 21 saves on 24 shots.  He had little chance on the two power playr goals, but was beaten by Rieder on the breakaway.
• The Rangers outshot the Sabres 30-24, though five of those shots came in the last minute and a half when they had a two man advantage.
• Despite the shot advantage the Sabres had 19 scoring chances to the Rangers’ 11 at even strength and they had 11 high danger chances to the Rangers’ six.
• Brendan Lemieux made his return to the lineup and had an assist on the Miller goal. He played 9:16 and didn’t take a penalty.
• With Filip Chytil out of the lineup, Brett Howden was moved to the third line along with Alexis Lafrenière and Kaapo Kakko.  It didn’t last long as David Quinn used nine different line combinations for at least two minutes at even strength.
• This was the Rangers’ first loss in Buffalo since October 2018.
• Only six teams in the NHL have scored fewer goals per game (2.50) than the Rangers. When it comes to goals against, they are 15th best in the NHL allowing 2.83 goals per game.  After bleeding shots last season they have cut it down to 25.8 goals per game, sixth best in the NHL.  They are taking 32.7 shots per game, also sixth best in the league.
• The Rangers lost seven games by one goal last season.  This year, they already have lost  three.