Rangers drop tight 1-0 decision to Predators

The New York Rangers and Nashville Predators played an outstanding game at Madison Square Garden that ended as a 1-0 win for the visitors. In a way, it was payback as the Blueshirts had traveled to Nashville and had done the same thing to the Predators, winning their first decision in October.

Though they lost, this was a well played, playoff-level hockey game.  It featured tight checking, tough hitting, an airtight defense and outstanding goaltending from both teams.  The Predators were just a little better and it paid off.

The Rangers should chalk this one up to experience, but it is the kind of game that they will need to win if they are to go deep in the playoffs.   After a slow start, the Rangers turned it around and had the better of the play, but were stymied by Juuse Saros who right now, is one of the best goalies in the NHL.  That slow start was helped by the Predators who came out hitting and kept the Rangers off balance.  While the first period was scoreless, the Blueshirts could barely muster any offense and by the time they got going, it was too late.

Chris Kreider was very critical of the effort in his postgame comments saying “We didn’t play particularly well the other night and won and we carried that in this game. We didn’t get enough battles, win enough battles. They were finishing all of their checks, winning all their battles. It took us 20 minutes to figure that out…just can’t happen.”

Gerard Gallant was also pretty harsh in his assessment.  “I didn’t like any of the game, to be honest with you.  We played too soft, we didn’t play a hard enough game. It was a man’s game and we didn’t play it.”

It was the start that irked him. “They (Nashville) came in here and played a good road game. They played a hard game and we didn’t match the intensity they had especially in the first period. After that I thought it was better.  First period they outbumped us and won all the one-on-one battles.”

It’s true.  In the first period, they were outshot 13-6 and outhit 20-8.  Alexandar Georgiev kept them in the game with a number of key saves.

The Predators had seven high danger shots compared to only three for New York. It wasn’t until 1:44 into the second period that Nashville got on the scoreboard on a shot from the slot by and open Philip Tomasino.

The Rangers played Nashville pretty evenly for most of the period, but it took a massive hit by Jacob Trouba on Luke Kunin 16 minutes into the second period to really ignite the Rangers.

After the hit it was all Rangers, but it was too little too late.

They had one last chance to even the score when Adam Fox drew a tripping penalty with 14 minutes left in the game.  Ryan Strome had three fabulous opportunities but was stoned by Saros.

If you want to see how good Juuse Saros was, look at this video recap.

No one left this game feeling bad about the Rangers effort, but with games coming up against Colorado and Vegas, they need to win some of these tight games against playoff contenders.