Rangers show a lot of grit and little else

Notes on the game

It’s time to pay tribute to Ovechkin who scored twice in his quest to pass Wayne Gretzky as the all-time goal scoring leader.  He scored his 731st and 732nd career goals to pass Marcel Dionne and move into fifth place on the career list. His next target is Brett Hull with 741.  Gretzky remains on top with 894.

Alexandar Georgiev was in goal and that was a surprise.  It’s a decision that may be second guessed after he was outplayed by Vitek Vanecek.  He allowed five goals on 27 shots for a Save Percentage of .818. At least two of the goals fall into the “stoppable” category and his stickhandling was shaky. Gallant said he thought “Georgie was good” and he had no chance on some of the goals.

Igor Shesterkin is 3-1 lifetime against the Caps allowing ten goals in four games.  He relishes playing against Ovechkin and has allowed Washington only one power play goal in those four games. Georgiev is now 1-5-1 lifetime versus the Caps and has allowed 21 goals in seven games including six power play goals.

Ryan Reaves played 11 minutes and led the team with five hits. His fourth line had a couple solid shifts in the offensive zone early game, but was ineffective late.

The third line of Filip Chytil, Barclay Goodrow and Sammy Blais was the Rangers best threesome.   Blais took six minutes in penalties.

Kaapo Kakko led all Rangers with five shots on goal and Adam Fox had four shots.  None of them were memorable as Vanecek was very good on his positioning and had little trouble making the stops.

Kakko also saw over two minutes on the penalty kill and needs some work. He was victimized on the first Caps goal, letting Ovechkin get to a puck that he passed to T.J. Oshie.  Not to pick on him, Goodrow let Ovechkin walk in and score on his third period power play goal.

The Rangers big guns, Artemi Panarin and Mika Zibanejad were ineffective, attributable to the Caps defense.  The Washington fourth line of Hagelin-Dowd-Hathaway stifled the Rangers whenever they were on the ice.

One positive note is the Rangers were 31-20 on faceoffs with Ryan Strome (4-8) the only sub .500 center on the team. Filip Chytil won six of eight faceoffs.

To make matters worse, rookie center Hendrix Lapierre  scored his first NHL goal in his debut off a nice pass from Oshie. It was a sweet shot for the goal.

Lapierre was drafted 22nd overall in the first round of the 2020 NHL Entry Draft.  He had missed some time with head injuries so his stock had dropped dramatically, but had been a solid top 10 pick until the injuries.  When the Rangers took Braden Schneider 19th overall there were some who thought they should have taken Lapierre, especially considering their need for depth at center.  We will see how that works out.

Nils Lundkvist did not play, making this the first season opener since 2003 without a rookie in the lineup for the Rangers.  Jarred Tinordi had a rough game, leaving Gallant open to some more second guessing.

Another lineup decision that will be discussed was Dryden Hunt getting the start instead of Julien Gauthier. Hunt played the way he is supposed to, throwing the body with three hits and getting one shot on goal.  The Rangers could have used Gauthier’s ability to drive to the net or, dare we say it, Vitali Kravtsov’s offensive skills.

The TNT telecast was in a word, awful.  The pregame show was a promotional stunt and the intermissions were more of the same.  Did we really need to see Wayne Gretzky shooting pucks at Charles Barkley?   They barely talked about the game, instead, kowtowing to Gretzky and making jokes.

The play-by-play was bearable because of Kenny Albert and Ed Olczyk, but they missed some key replays.  The worst was a lengthy mid-period interview with Gretkzy that seems endless and overshadowed the two Capitals goals scored in 24 seconds.  They should have dumped out of the interview, but kept it going so there was no description or analysis of the two goals. Kudos to Keith Jones who called a Capitals goal offside from his position between the benches.  He was right and the goal was disallowed.

Gallant was successful in the first coach’s challenge of the new season.   Th Capitals were clearly offside on the first period goal. The challenge bailed out Georgiev who should have stopped the shot.   Gallant has a lousy track record  with challenges.  He was successful only 12 times in 37 challenges while coaching the Golden Knights.