The Rangers dropped their third straight, 4-3 in overtime Sunday to the Golden Knights. New York led just 1:13 into the game on a goal by Brady Skjei, but trailed 2-1 and 3-2 but rallied to tie the game each time. Alex Tucb, who was born in Syracuse, grew up in Baldwinsville, New York and had 30-40 friends at the game, scored the game-winner in overtime from a sharp angle just beating Henrik Lundqvist.
Game recap:
A few thoughts:
1)
Kevin Hayes - assists on all three goals and is 3-6-9 his last four games. This is one of my favorite stats from today: “Of Hayes' 200 career NHL points, 157 have either been a goal or the primary assist on a goal (78.5% of his NHL points have either been a goal or a primary assist).”
Freed up from solely playing a sensible role, Hayes’ offense has blossomed. He is a no doubt second line center who plays a 120-foot game. I know all the talk about trading him and you know my view.
2)
Henrik Lundqvist - under siege all game. Might like to have Tuch’s goal back, though it was a tough shot to stop. Really needs a day or two off as coach David Quinn has been riding him hard. After the game, the Rangers called up Alexandar Georgiev, we could see him play Tuesday against Anaheim to give Lundqvist a well deserved rest.
One caveat is that In five games for the Wolf Pack since being sent down, Georgiev stopped 127 of 144 shots, .883 save percentage, and a 3.47 GAA. Eleven of those goals were allowed on Dec 7 and 8. Georgiev played well when in the lineup, so is worth a look see
3)
Defense - a whole lot of woof. Outshot 41-30, when adding in blocked shots, that margin is 65-38 and out-attempted in overall shots 82-52. Those are very ugly numbers and continues a pattern that has been all too prevalent the past month plus.
Lindy Ruff isn’t getting through to the defense and the offense isn’t doing a good enough job of meeting their responsibilities. Way too many open spaces and bad reads by the blueliners, leading to high danger shots. Progress has not been evident.
Brady Skjei continues to struggle. I was hoping the benching might light a fire under his butt, but that hasn’t been the case. The same stupid mistakes are being made. With Kevin Shattenkirk out and Adam McQuaid back, one blueliner still needs to sit. Maybe it will be Skjei and the whispers to maybe more him since strong questions exist as to whether he will even get it are getting louder and louder.
The same can be said for Brendan Smith, as he also continues to underperform. Add in the awful Marc Staal-Neal Pionk duo, and it’s no question that the D has been woof bad. I have been saying for weeks to try Fredrik Claesson with Pionk or Skjei as a way to ballast their offensive inclinations with a better D man. Play the other blueliners with McQuaid and see if that works. Right now, little is working and why during the break in the schedule where New York only had two games in 12 days wasn’t thesse issues remediated?
4)
Compete level - normally, this has not been a concern this season. But Quinn spoke after the game how dissatisfied he was with the teamMs performance. Lundqvist took his teammates to task during the game in a second period break in the action. New York has been engaged in most games and brought a willingness and desire to work. I view today as more of an aberration but good that Quinn won’t let them get away with this.
“It’s one thing to lose when you’re ready, prepared and play hard, but I think the first two periods, it’s not the way we’ve been playing,” said Lundqvist, ultimately beaten by Alex Tuch on a two-on-one at 2:11 of OT. “At home, in front of our fans, we need to work harder. Mistakes are going to happen. I make mistakes, we all make mistakes, but we can’t accept not being ready to fight for one another here.“
“I thought we were not ready. The position we’re in, we have to battle every night. It’s not going to be great every night but at least you’ve got to battle. That’s upsetting when you see that,” Lundqvist added.
“It’s ridiculous how good [Lundqvist] was the first two periods because it was two bad a periods as we’ve played all year,” Quinn said. “I mean, they outhit us, outskated us, out-passed us, outshot us; they out-everythinged us except for goaltending.”
“How could you not be?” Quinn added. “It was embarrassing. You can’t come out and play hockey like that. It’s 200 by 85 (feet). If you don’t want to be involved in contact, you should go do something else. You can’t hide in this game. And we hid for two periods.”
Clearly not happy, nor should he be. Especially when you compare how New York competed versus Las Vegas. The Knights are on your every shift and don’t take one off. That’s usually what we saw from the Rangers, just not Sunday
5) As Carp noted, Lias Andersson got his pocket picked at the red line, by William Carrier, for a 3-on-1 against Pionk. Carrier moved it to Tomas Nosek and got it back all alone down the slot for a snipe past Lundqvist. 3-2.
Andersson’s mistake was far less egregious than some of the turnovers, some of the nonsensical passes, questionable choices, and certainly some of the defensive-zone coverage decisions committed by far more experienced players. He played just two more shifts.
That last sentence bothers me. Andersson knew he made a mistake and had his pocket picked; that was clear from his reaction on the bench. In this situation, no message in terms of benching him, at least in my opinion, was necessary. But Quinn made the decision to sit Andersson most of the rest of the game, which to me, was a mistake.
6) Lots to work on. Confidence level. Minimizing the turnovers. Cleaning up the stupid plays. Smarter coverage in their own zone. Better reads defensively. Cutting out the silly penalties.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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