Another tough loss in a defensive battle

The New York Rangers are digging themselves a hole, courtesy of the Carolina Hurricanes.  They came up short in a 2-0 game that featured 29 shots on goal for both teams combined at even strength.  5v5 the Rangers actually outshot the Canes 15-14 and neither team could solve Igor Shesterkin or Antti Raanta. It became a battle of special teams and the Hurricanes narrowly won.

The Rangers were unable to score on four power plays and gave up a backbreaking shorthanded goal while on a four-minute man advantage.

The Rangers penalty kill was outstanding and they withstood a 69 second 5v3 Hurricanes power play.

These were the two best defensive teams in the NHL and while the Rangers were second overall, they owed much of that accomplishment to Igor Shesterkin.  In Carolina’s case, they allowed the fewest goals more because of the team defense and not as much because of their goaltending.  The simple fact is that the Hurricanes are an outstanding defensive team.

One more time it was the Rangers’ top six that couldn’t break through.  At even strength it is almost understandable, but it was on the power play that they failed completely.  Of course, remember that the Hurricanes also had the best penalty kill in the NHL.

The Rangers had so few high danger scoring opportunities you can count them on two hands with eight.  That said, they held the Hurricanes to only 10.

Now, the series shifts to New York.  Carolina was much worse on the road in Round One, allowing 14 goals against compared to only six at home. Boston coach Bruce Cassidy was able to match lines when he had the last change, but that kind of strategic play is not something that Gallant does a lot of.

The stars are not producing

To say that the defense in this series has been stifling is an understatement.  In this game, Mika Zibanejad had five shot attempts, but only three at even strength and two shots on goal.  Artemi Panarin had three shot attempts with none getting through on goal.    Chris Kreider had three shot attempts with none on goal.

It’s been much the same for Carolina. Their top scorer, Sebastian Aho, had one shot attempt the entire game and no shots on goal until he scored the empty net goal. Andrei Svechnikov had one shot at even strength and Teuvo Teravainen had one shot attempt at even strength with no shots on goal.

The reason we are focusing on the Rangers top players is because the Canes have gotten scoring from Ian Cole and Brendan Smith, unlikely sources of offense.

In his postgame interview, even Antti Raanta admitted that he hasn’t had to make many tough saves.  The Hurricanes blocked 24 Rangers shots, another factor that contributed to the feeling that the Rangers offense was totally missing.

In fact, the Rangers best scoring chance belonged to Ryan Strome who had shot with Raanta out of position only to shoot the puck into Tony DeAngelo’s backside.

No matter what, the defense for both teams has been pretty outstanding.  Look at it this way, it took the Flames and Oilers only 13 minutes in their Game Two to score more even strength goals than the Canes and Rangers have scored into two whole games.

One area that needs improvement is in the faceoff circle. Winning only 16 of the first 42 draws (38%) didn’t help the Rangers establish an offense.  The did win 55% of their faceoffs in the third period.

After the game, all of the Rangers who spoke were fairly upbeat, with predictable comments about the closeness of the game, the quality of the opposition and the need to get more shots on Raanta. Same for Gerard Gallant who summed it up, “It was a good hockey game.  Low shots.  Battle for both teams. Could have gone either way obviously.”   Gallant pointed out that in their two prior visits to Carolina they had been dominated, giving up 50 shots (it was really 35 and 44) and so far in this series, they had reversed that.

Gallant did point out the obvious. “The disappointment was we didn’t take advantage of our power plays. We haven’t said that too often this year, so that’s the tough part of it.”  He explained “I’m seeing a great penalty kill putting  alot of pressure on them. We didn’t find the inside man very often in the slot, the bumper guy, they put a lot of pressure and we didn’t adjust to it quick enough. Got to compete a little harder I think.”

It’s the nature of a seven game series that a team is not in serious trouble until they lose a home game.  That’s what looms on Sunday.

Gallant put it best.  “You get your team prepared to play and you play as hard as you can and you hope you win these hockey games. We gotta go home and take care of Sunday afternoon’s game. That’s the first thing we gotta do. I’m happy with the way we performed overall, I wish we could have gotten one of these two games, we probably could have. That’s the way it goes.”

It’s important to keep perspective, no matter how frustrating this series has been.  The Rangers were the underdogs in this series and have gone toe to toe with the Hurricanes.  They’ve allowed only three goals in two games not including the empty net goal and lost one game in overtime.

Their offense has been shut down by the best defensive team in the NHL and the Carolina defense has almost been shut down as well by the second best defensive team in the NHL.  They need to get their business done in front of a home crowd for the next two games and come back to Carolina tied 2-2.

The Rangers have been a comeback team all year. This is just another one.

Here’s a video recap of the game.

Sunday’s game starts at 3:30pm and will be televised on ESPN.