Rangers edged 1-0 by Penguins in a playoff preview

About the game

You can’t blame the Rangers for a slow start.  Ryan Strome was stopped point blank by Tristan Jarry and Dryden Hunt was stymied on the rebound.  The Blueshirts got an early power play, but couldn’t get much going with two shots on goal on five shot attempts. The Rangers dominated most of the period.  In fact until the Penguins got a power play 14 minutes into the period, the Rangers had eight shots to only one for Pittsburgh.

On that penalty kill, the Rangers had two odd man rushes and Jarry made a nice save on Trouba’s attempt at a shorthanded goal.

With three minutes left in the period, Shesterkin made a stop on a shot by Jake Guentzel.  As he froze the puck, Sidney Crosby cross checked K’Andre Miller and when the Ranger pushed him away, he took a healthy whack at the defenseman.  No call, of course.

The period ended scoreless thought the Blueshirts had the better of the play. According to naturalstattrick.com, the Rangers had 21 shot attempts to 14 for Pittsburgh. Shots on goal were 12-6 in favor of New York though the Pens had four high danger scoring chances to two for the Rangers. There was a scrum at the end of the period as the bad blood between the teams was obvious.

The second period was scoreless as well.  They played six minutes 4v4 as Kevin Rooney and Evgeni Malkin were engaged in a personal battle throughout the period.  With no power plays, each team had 10 scoring chances with five each of the high danger variety.

The Penguins started to take over the game and Igor Shesterkin had to be at his best.  Eight minutes into the period, he made a brilliant glove save on a Danton Heinon shot through traffic.

There was some nastiness when Dryden Hunt got away with a cross check on John Marino who retaliated with a high stick.  Of course, the retaliation was not called and they evened it up with two roughing penalties.

The teams went into the third period in a scoreless tie with the Rangers boasting a 12-1-1 record when tied after two periods.  Not this time.

The Rangers couldn’t get anything going in the third and it led to a Pittsburgh power play when Ryan Lindgren was called for hooking Sidney Crosby on a breakaway at the 4:35 mark. The call was iffy as Lindgren actually didn’t come close to hooking him until after Crosby took the shot.  We’ve seen the same play numerous times with no penalty called.  Call it the Crosby factor.

34 seconds into the penalty, the Rangers were guilty of running around a bit and it left Malkin wide open to Shesterkin’s left.

Bryan Rust found him with a pass and Malkin made a really excellent shot to Shesterkin’s far side as he slid over to make the save.  90% of the players taking that shot would be going for the short side, but not Malkin.   1-0 Pittsburgh.

The Rangers had their chance with about 12 minutes left when Marcus Pettersson cross checked Dryden Hunt no less than four times before a penalty was called.   Jarry made two outstanding saves on Chris Kreider and Adam Fox and the Rangers couldn’t score.  The penalty ended on a point shot from Jacob Trouba that Jarry stopped.

That was it for the Rangers as they could muster only four shots on goal the rest of the game though they some chances as time expired.

Here’s a five minute video recap of the game.

This was a close game that could have gone either way. The Rangers ended up outshooting the Penguins 27-26, outhit them 43-39 and they won 54% of the draws.  The difference was the one power play goal.

Notes on the game

The loss dropped the Ranger back into third place with a record of 33-14-5, but they have two games in hand on the Penguins. The Blueshirts are sixth overall in points percentage.

This was the third time this season the Rangers have been shut out with two of the losses by a 1-0 score.

The Rangers have played 31 one-goal games with a record of 19-7-5.  That includes games with empty net goals that would have been one-goal games.

The Rangers have a 6-4-0 record against Met Division teams.  After March 15, the team plays 14 of their final 23 games against Metropolitan Division teams.

Now that they have played Pittsburgh, the only teams they have not faced so far this season are Winnipeg and St. Louis.

The Rangers had killed 11 penalties in a row before Malkin scored.

The lack of power play opportunities is becoming an issue as teams are working hard to stay out of the penalty box.  This was the fifth straight game the Rangers had only one or two power plays.  For a team that needs to score on special teams, it’s hurting them a lot.

Igor Shesterkin was outstanding as usual and has allowed only 10 goals in the last seven games. He improved his league leading goals against average to 1.95 and save percentage to .941.  In the post-expansion era, the only Ranger goalie to finish with a GAA below 2.00 was Henrik Lundqvist who registered 1.97 in 2011-12.  That season, the Swede also registered the best save percentage with .930 since they started keeping track in 1955.

Chris Kreider came close to scoring, leading the team with six shots on goal.

The Rangers’ shut down line of Kevin Rooney, Barclay Goodrow and Ryan Reaves did an excellent job on the Malkin line.  Reaves had four hits, second to Ryan Lindgren and Julien Gauthier who had five hits each.

In a change, Morgan Barron was moved to the wing with Greg McKegg at center. After the game Gallant said that there was no special reason.

Adam Fox led all skaters, playing 26:22 minutes.  He had a great chance to tie the game on the last Rangers’ power play, but Jarry stopped him.

Ryan Strome is slumping with only two goals and 10 points in 18 games.  With Dryden Hunt ineffective on offense, it’s not helping Artemi Panarin who is clearly trying too hard with no support from his linemates.  It’s becoming a bigger issue with the Zibanejad line the only one that can be counted on for even strength scoring.

Though Dryden Hunt has been unable to dent the scoresheet, he was effective as an agitator, clearly driving the Penguins crazy. He has to do that in order to contribute.

The ABC telecast left a lot to be desired.  They couldn’t get their penalty clock working for the first two power plays and the announcers didn’t even notice so we had no idea how much time was left.   The reliance on the moving high shot was annoying.  It’s a silly camera angle that induces motion sickness and makes it difficult to follow the puck.  Someone needs to tell the folks at ABC to put that camera in the box it came in and never use it again.

Early on they didn’t show any replays.  The first was when Chris Kreider took his first period penalty 14 minutes in.  Of course they showed the Malkin goal six times from six different angles.

The ABC announcers were better than the ESPN team, but their glorification of Sidney Crosby was over the top.  We know he’s good.  Also, at one point Sean McDonaugh said the puck was “stopped by a Ranger.”  Nice of him to know the players.

They had a microphone on Crosby the entire game.  They showed two sequences and the Penguins star literally just grunted. If it isn’t worth anything, don’t show it.

My 3 Rangers stars

1. Igor Shesterkin gets the top star once again.  He allowed his usual one goal and made a number of fantastic saves.  It would be nice if the Rangers could get him some offensive support. In his last nine starts, the Rangers have scored more than two goals only three times.
2. We’ll give the second star to the entire Rangers defense corps.  They shut down a high power NHL offense in this game.  You have probably noticed that they have become very, very good at getting the puck out of the Rangers’ zone.  They literally had maybe three of those bad shifts when the Penguins kept the Rangers penned in their own end in for an extended period in the entire game.
3. Mika Zibanejad played over 20 minutes and won 10 of 14 faceoffs.  He was the most effective Rangers forward in this game.

The official 3 stars

1. Tristan Jarry – Penguins
2. Evgeni Malkin – Penguins
3. Igor Shesterkin – Rangers

What’s next

The Rangers won’t have time to dwell on this loss as they return home to face the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday night. It’s then two days off before the St Louis Blues come to town.  That begins a stretch of 30 games in 60 days.

Gametime is 7:30pm and the telecast will be on the MSG Network.