Rangers blow a winnable game, lose 5-3 to Columbus

Notes on the game

The loss dropped the Rangers record to 28-12-4 and more importantly from first to third place in the Metropolitan Division. They are tied with Carolina and Pittsburgh with 60 points, but the Hurricanes have four games in hand while the Penguins have one.

They finished winning the season series 2-1 with the Blue Jackets.

This was the sixth straight game that the Rangers have fallen behind. In fact, except for their 3-0 shutout win over San Jose on January 13, they have had to come from behind in nine of their last 10 games, winning five times.  That’s a disturbing trend.

Mika Zibanejad scored on the power play and now has 11 goals and 22 points in his last 16 games

Artemi Panarin owns the Columbus Blue Jackets. with a goal and two assists, he now has eight goals and 17 points in 10 games against them.

Before he left, Adam Fox got an assist on the Panarin goal padding his lead as the top scoring defenseman in the NHL.   He also made two very uncharacteristic bonehead plays, turning the puck over twice on the same shift, leading to the Jackets fourth goal.

Barclay Goodrow was a very active forward for the Rangers. He scored in the first period and led the Rangers with six shots.  He easily could have had a hat trick in this game when you consider the two posts he hit.

Braden Schneider notched his first NHL assist in on the second Ranger goal, then added another on the Zibanejad power play goal.  After the game Gallant singled him out saying that he had played really well. The duo of Schneider and Libor Hajek were the only defensemen with a positive plus/minus for the game.

Julien Gauthier started the game on the top line with Zibanejad and Kreider, but that didn’t last long as Gallant started mixing up lines to try to get the team going.  Gauthier was stopped by Korpisalo in the third period point blank off a fabulous feed from Lafrenière.

It’s sad to say, but Gauthier just cannot finish.

Alexandar Georgiev had a good, but not a great game. He allowed four goals on 18 shots and that is not a great percentage.  While he didn’t get a ton of help from the Rangers defense, if he stops just one of those goals it is a completely different game. In between periods, Steve Valiquette was critical of Georgiev’s body language when he allows a goal.  You cannot tell if he is made at himself or his teammates and if it is the latter, it’s not good that he shows it.  The bottom line is Georgiev was outplayed by Korpisalo.

The Rangers were 1-3 on the power play as they scored for the fourth straight game with the man advantage

The penalty killers were 1-2 and have now allowed five power play goals in their last 17 times shorthanded.

Kaapo Kakko may not be piling up the points, but the team misses him when he is out of the lineup.  With Kakko and Filip Chytil out, it reveals how thin the Rangers are at forward.