Game recap: 3 third period goals doom the Rangers in 5-2 loss to the Devils

About the game

The game got off to a rollicking start just 29 seconds in when Chris Kreider fought Michael McLeod after the Devil laid a big hit on Zibanejad.   Despite the fight the Devils came out fast, outshooting the Rangers 7-2 after six minutes.  It was all Igor Shesterkin as he made at least three tremendous saves early on.

It was odd man rush after odd man rush for the Devils as they outshot the Rangers 16-9 in the first period. Andreas Johnsson alone had two fabulous scoring opportunities.

The Blueshirts were lucky to escape with no scoring and it was all Shesterkin.

It was typical that the Devils got on the board first.  Mika Zibanejad took an inadvertent elbowing penalty at 6:37 and the Devils made the Rangers pay, scoring the first power play goal against the Rangers in 22 chances.  With a minute left in the penalty the Devils were able to set up in the Rangers zone and Pavel Zacha rifled home a shot from the top of the faceoff circle. Shesterkin looked like he was screened, but it was an excellent shot by Zacha.

The Ranger finally got on the scoreboard when Colin Blackwell scored as the trailer on a Ranger break-in.  Howden carried the puck up ice, got it back after Di Giuseppe  forced a turnover and made a nice pass to Blackwell who scored on a wrist shot.

The goal came four minutes after Zacha’s goal and it ended a 100 minute 46 second shutout streak.

At 17:14 the Devils carried the puck into the Rangers zone and Will Butcher took a shot from the boards.  It hit Jacob Trouba in the left and deflected into the goal.  It was a lucky bounce, but typical of what has been happening to the Rangers.

The good news is that the Rangers answered right back when Pavel Buchnevich scored with only 33 seconds left in the period. Kreider got the puck on a turnover in the offensive zone, wheeled around and made the cross ice pass to Buchnevich who wasted no time taking the shot from the faceoff circle.

It was Buchnevich’s second goal in 11 games and he symbolically pulled the monkey off his back.

Unfortunately, that was the last good thing that happened to the Rangers.

It was a good period for New York. They outshot the Devils 16-9, had 10 hits to the Devils’ three.

Fully expecting the Devils to be the team that would run out of gas, the story was the opposite.  The Devils came at the Rangers in waves,  It finally paid off at 10:43 when Yegor Sharangovich made a fantastic deflection of a point shot from P.K. Subban.

Trailing by a goal, you would expect an all out effort by the Rangers, but the next goal came just over three minutes later after a hard working shift by the Devils.  They penned in the fourth line along with Bitetto and Hajek for exactly 30 seconds and Nick Merkley was able to score on a shot from the slot.

The Rangers  called a timeout to discuss strategy and then pulled Shesterkin with almost three minutes left, but it was for naught and though they kept the puck in the Devils’ zone, they couldn’t finish and when Kreider gave up the puck, Mikhail Maltsev was able to score his first NHL goal.