The Rangers played their last game - at least for a while - Wednesday, falling 3-2 in overtime to the Avalanche. Pavel Francouz was brilliant between the pipes for Colorado, who notched their two goals in regular on the power play. New York tied the game with under 15 seconds remaining on a beautiful feed and tip-in by Pavel Buchnevich. Mika Zibanejad hit the crossbar for the second time in the game in overtime, shortly thereafter J.T. Compher deflected Cale Makar's shot for the game-winner. Now we wait, as the NHL suspended play indefinitely Thursday.
Game recap:
David Quinn Post-Game:
Coach Quinn's postgame comments, including his full statement on the team's current status: pic.twitter.com/3oEjUqiJnS
1) I thought the Rangers carried play for much of the contest. Some of the comments I saw was that the team played individual hockey, failing to set screens in front of Francouz, making his life easy, and their shifts were too long. On the latter point maybe, but Quinn rolled his stars with four players seeing under 10 minutes of action. In addition, he reunited Zib and Panarin in the second period to generate offense. You have to wonder if he expected a delay starting today and was going all in to win the game. On the point on screens, maybe, but the team controlled action much of the game and if Ryan Strome, Kaapo Kakko and Ryan Strome could lift the puck, the Blueshirts would have easily won the game.
2) Strome - dear god man, could you have missed any more opportunities. Open net on power play, puck hits heel of the stick and the post. Top portion of net, shot over the cross bar. In the slot, 10-15 feet from net, stoned. A chance later, can't lift the puck. All in all a nightmarish game.
3) Adam Fox - his skills were on display all contest. This was especially so in the defensive end, as he was able to maintain possession and spin away from checks. Add in his two assists and it was another complete game for the neophyte blueliner.
4) Brendan Lemiuex hit on Joonas Donskoi - use whatever term you want. Unnecessary, brutal, stupid, all are accurate. He is having a hearing with the Department of Player Safety. With his history, a 1-2 game suspension wouldn't be surprising:
— Here's Your Replay ⬇️ (@HeresYourReplay) March 12, 2020
5) Zib - gets number 41. Was all over the place, almost over trying. Stoned on a pair of breakaways, trying his patented backhand move, hitting the cross bar,
6) Alexandar Georgiev - I thought he played a solid game. Got into a conversation on twitter where comment was Georgiev always allows an easy goal to lose a game. Don't think that was the case here and he was brilliant at times yesterday.
Right now, nothing is set in stone, that includes length of absence, if season will resume, if it does, what does that mean, how will the playoffs be handled including who makes it and length of each series. All that will be decided over time.
The Athletic proposed the following, which if proves to be accurate, the Rangers will be home. New York's 2-4-1 mark since Chris Kreider was injured would end up having the team on the outside looking in. In that stretch, the loss to New Jersey was the killer, if the playoffs are handled using the current records and points percentage. But that is a discussion for down the road. One potential positive is if the season somehow starts earlier than expected or does have a truncated end of the season, New York would likely have Kreider back for that stretch.
The best-case scenario here, according to several sources contacted by The Athletic late Wednesday night, would mean the shutdown lasts only three weeks and the NHL playoffs would begin essentially as scheduled in mid-April. Teams would be ranked by points percentage and given playoff berths as if the season had, in fact, ended on March 11 instead of April 4.
All we can do now is wait and hope. Most important is the health of everyone involved. Sports is secondary at best. Prayers to all those impacted to date and those who potentially may be infected.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»