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Rangers outplayed broadly, falling 7-3 to Avalanche |
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The Rangers crashed back to earth, falling 7-3 to the Avalanche on Wednesday. Adam Huska, making his first NHL start, was under siege throughout the contest, allowing those seven goals on 39 shots, New York has today before the Sabres in Buffalo on Friday.
Game recap:
A few thoughts:
1) Overall: a fairly brutal performance up-and-down the lineup. Colorado tooks advantage of nearly every opportunity afforded to them by New York, who made several egregious turnovers in the loss. In addition, the Avalanche did a good job of limiting New York's time and space with the puck, especially on the first unit's man advantage set up.
Coach Gerard Gallant said post-game that he was dealing with a tired team. That's understandable as they didn't get in from Chicago until about 2am while the Avalanche were well rested. But, New York had Sunday and Monday off after playing Saturday night, so I discount that view slightly. In addition, the path forward gets no easier with the team in the midst of a heavy workload of 10 games in 17 days. New York is halfway through that schedule with five contests remaining over the next eight days.
The loss was New York's first since November 18. A stinker eventually was expected. This was the perfect storm. Opponent who was on an offensive roll. A tired team. Third string goalie. Several misplays and turnovers. Add it all up and a recipe for disaster in a 7-3 loss.
2) Huska: as we noted yesterday and stated in the NY Post, "the decision to go with Huska over Alexandar Georgiev was made with the Rangers’ jam-packed schedule in mind. With Shesterkin unavailable, the Rangers are likely wary of burning Georgiev out too quickly. And after Georgiev started the previous two, the Rangers evidently wanted to give him the night off."
Shesterkin is eligible to return and is expected to be on the ice today skating. But it's unlikely he will be in net against Buffalo and is an outside shot to face Nashville. I could see him being between the pipes to face Colorado on December 14 with Georgiev in net the next night to place Arizona and then Igor again two days later before New York receives four welcomed days off.
Huska was not great, though his defense did little to help him in the loss. A seventh-round pick from 2015, Huska may not even be the #1 goalie in Hartford, but putting any of this loss on him is unfair. Maybe if Igor was in net, he would have allowed three or four goals, but that would have been with him providing usual elite goaltending to make up for the poor play in front of him.
3) Power play: Colorado studied the Rangers PP closely, taking away open room, especially in the offensive zone. One key takeaway I saw was that the Avalanche knew that Artemi Panarin likes to use his backhand and leave a drop pass to the point. They cut off that avenue, resulting in several turnovers and a first unit power play that sputtered badly. Panarin will need to occasionally change up his style to throw defenders off and avoid showing a pattern
4) Defense: woof bad. K'Andre Miller was undressed several times. Learning and growing experiences, which will make him better. Adam Fox had a rare poor game. Of the six blueliners, I thought Nils Lundkvist, who scored his first NHL goal in the game on the man advantage, was the best of the bunch.
Jacob Trouba had his second straight Gordie Howe hat trick. He now has five goals in his last eight games, stepping up offensively. The assist came on Nils' goal. Trouba caught Nathan MacKinnon with his head down, blasting him in the slot, and spent the rest of the game dealing with retaliation attempts. The check was clean, as Trouba played the man not the puck, which was at MacKinnon's feet. Point of contact was the chest, though he looked to also make some contact with the head, which was down. My concern is that Trouba will get a reputation with the league, who will scrutinize his checks even closer. In addition, Trouba having to defend himself repeatedly and potentially fighting hurts the team, as that lands him in the box for five minutes at a minimum at a clip.
One bad loss does not take away from the win streak. Learn from the mistakes and move on. The issues we noted existed during the win streak did come to the fore a bit yesterday and additional resources may be needed as the season wears on. Plus, the team does need Zib to regain his second half form, as that would go a long way to making this team harder to play against.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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