Rangers lose 3-2 in overtime, was that good or bad?

The New York Rangers took the Islanders to overtime only to lose on a Ryan Pulock goal.  An optimist would be pleased that they escaped with a point after trailing 2-0 and that they took three out of four points on the road from one of the best teams in the league.  A pessimist would say that the Rangers started off horribly, fell behind 2-0 and lost a game that they should have won in overtime and blew an opportunity to pick up two points on the Boston Bruins.

This was not a great game for the veterans.  Chris Kreider gets the goat of the game honors.  He took a dumb delay of game penalty just 1:23 minutes into the game that turned into a 1-0 lead for the Islanders.  He and his linemates decided to make a change with under 10 seconds left in the period, a mistake that the Islanders jumped on for an odd man rush goal with just 7.6 seconds left in the first period.

In the overtime, he lost his man in the defensive zone that turned into an excellent scoring opportunity for the Islanders that forced Igor Shesterkin to make a clutch save.  The Isles then won the game on the play after the ensuing faceoff in the Rangers zone.

After leaving an ineffective first line alone for numerous games, David Quinn finally made a move and demoted Kreider to the fourth line in the second period, replacing him with Vitali Kravtsov who made more good plays in one shift that Kreider did in the entire game.

Coach David Quinn, the king of cliches and non-answers, was asked to assess Kreider’s play recently. “A little bit of inconsistency. He’s at his best when there is simplicity to his game, there’s no hesitation to what he’s doing. Right now there’s a little bit of hesitation in his game.”

That “little bit of hesitation” has resulted in one even strength goal in his last 20 games and one even strength assist in his last 14 games.  Considering that Kreider doesn’t kill penalties, he has to excel at the power play to contribute.  He has one power play goal in his last 10 games and two power play assists in 41 games.  If he is not using his speed and size, he is a big reason that the top line is not successful.  Lately, they’ve been impotent.  At least Zibanejad and Buchnevich kill penalties.

Vitali Kravtsov played a dynamic game and saw time on all four forward lines.  He shoots the puck and is always getting it to the front of the net.  It resulted in his first NHL point on Brendan Smith;s tying goal.    The rookie replaced Kreider for awhile and also saw time with Panarin and Strome.

Quinn was asked what he likes about Kravtsov’s game.  More generalities was the response.  “I like how he competes.  I love his skill set.  I love his hockey IQ  So there’s a lot to like about his game and right from the get go he’s played with confidence and it’s growing each game. I just thought he deserved that opportunity. ”  As one of our readers pointed out, he said a whole lot of nothing.

Brendan Smith talked about the young players. “With a young squad, you can see there is resilience in this group and we want that. If we can keep playing this way, keep getting those point…I think we can be a team that can do damage.”

The highlight of the postgame comments was when Quinn said “Every point is life and death right now. We’ve got to be better three-on-three. Something we’ll probably work on here in the next practice.”

The Rangers have gone to overtime nine times this season.  They have won in overtime twice. That means that they have failed to score seven times and scored only twice.  Yet, every time, we see the same combinations on the ice.  In a game when the young players clearly outplayed the veterans, Quinn threw the veterans out on the ice and they didn’t deliver.

After Mika Zibanejad, Artemi Panarin and Adam Fox  failed to muster any real offense on the first shift, he put Filip Chytil, Ryan Strome and K’Andre Miller out.  It was Strome, the veteran, who was headed in the wrong direction when the Islanders took the puck and got it to a wide open Ryan Pulock for the winning goal.

The good news out of this game, other than the single point gained on the Boston Bruins, was that the young players were outstanding.  They almost pulled out a win and cannot be held responsible for the loss, that falls on the veterans.

Here is a full video recap of the game: