The Rangers lost 7-4 to the Penguins on Saturday and trail their best of seven series 2-1. After Igor Shesterkin was chased following the first period, New York scored three in the second stanza to knot the game at four. The Blueshirts failed to score on three straight power plays and lost when Danton Heinen snuck one short-side past Alexandar Georgiev at 11:02 in the third. A pair of late empty net goals sealed the defeat. New York will try to even the series Monday night in Pittsburgh.
Game recap:
A few thoughts:
1) For the Rangers, the
lineup was the same as Game 2. Ryan Lindgrem, who traveled with the team, was unable to dress, resulting in Justin Braun and Patrik Nemeth remaining in the lineup. Tyler Motte skated with the team in New York but did not make the trip down. Maybe he can be back for Game 5, because the fourth line sure needs him,
Kreider-Zibanejad-Vatrano
Panarin-Strome-Copp
Lafrenière-Chytil-Kakko
Hunt-Rooney-Reaves
Miller-Trouba
Braun-Fox
Nemeth-Schneider
Shesterkin
Scratches: Lindgren (lower-body), Goodrow (lower-body), Motte (upper-body), Gauthier, McKegg, Tinordi, Jones, Hajek, Gettinger, Lundkvist, Robertson, Pajuniemi, Brodzinski, Huska, Kinkaid
For Pittsburgh, Jason Zucker, out three games, including the first two of this series, with a lower-body injury, returned to action, with three shots and seven hits in 13:11 of ice time. Brian Dumoulin remained sidelined while Louie Domingue was between the pipes, as Casey DeSmith is out for the remainder of the playoffs following core surgery while Tristan Jarry is not ready to return from his broken foot.
2)
Goaltending was to be the big separator for these two teams coming into the playoffs. The gulf was to be widened by the loss of DeSmith on top of Jarry being out. Three games in, that has yet to be the full case.
Shesterkin was brilliant in Game 1, stopping 79 of 83 shots in the triple-overtime loss. He was almost as good in Game 2, with 39 saves in 41 shots. But in Game 3, he was chased after allowing four goals on 15 shots. Not all the tallies were his fault, but for New York to advance, Igor will have to be Vezina Trophy and Hart candidate Igor, not a partial facsimile.
Give Domingue credit. He's been fairly solid, stepping up to make key saves, including a huge one on Artemi Panarin about 40 seconds before Pittsburgh scored what became the game winner. In Game 1, he came off the bench cold, having not faced a shot in four-plus hours and picked up the victory, stopping all 17 shots he faced. I still don't think New York is making it hard enough on him and we saw Domingue is vulnerable over his glove. In addition, Domingue's defense has assisted him, which has not been the case on the Rangers side of the ice.
Georgiev settled the ship and played well in relief of Shesterkin. The goal was one that should have been stopped, as Georgiev failed to hug the post. But the blueline - which I will discuss - didn't help him out much there.
If Shesterkin doesn't play like he did earlier in the season, New York has little shot to win the series.
3)
Defense - woof bad. The main culprit yesterday was Patrik Nemeth, who was minus-three and brutal on the first and third goals. On the first, the puck went off Nemeth and behind Igor. Even though the goal was moved off its moorings, it was ruled correctly as a good goal. On the last one, Nemeth was outmuscled for the puck and then failed to mark Heinen. The puck jumped over the stick of Mika Zibanejad, also having a suboptimal series, onto the stick of Heinen, who went from having no angle to a decent shot on net.
Nemeth was not alone in his poor play yesterday, Braden Scheider had a rough game. Brian Boyle separated him from the puck on the boards on a play where all Schneider had to do was easily clear the zone, resulting in Evan Rodrigues' second goal of the game and period. Justn Braun has been meh replacing Lindgren in the Rangers' lineup opposite Adam Fox. You wonder if GM Chris Drury should have pursued a left-handed defenseman rather than Braun, who has had to play on his offside. Yes, that is hindsight being 20-20.
If Lindgren is out, I would dress Zac Jones in place of Nemeth and have him play with Schneider. If Lindgren is in, see the prior sentence. Jones would give New York a d-man with certainly enough speed to create off the rush or get back on defense. The question would be if he can handle the pressure and physical play, as a smaller blueliner. But given what we have seen from Nemeth and Braun, this would be a risk worth taking.
4)
Special teams - another area of a perceived strength for New York coming into the series. Yesterday, that was certainly far from the truth. The penalty kill and power play were large components of the loss.
In the first period, Pittsburgh notched power-play goals on back-to-back man advantages. The Penguins got traffic in front and also benefited from a fortuitous bounce off the boards. That said, they made their own breaks, taking the game to New York, hitting the Rangers at every possible chance. This is an area where Barclay Goodrow's absence is felt. New York rebounded slightly with a shorthanded goal by Andrew Copp after a brilliant play by Kevin Rooney late in the second to even the game.
The Rangers appeared to have all the momentum. All that remained was the fanbase's wishes for a power play to be awarded. This happened, not once, not twice, but three times within a span of 9:54 bridging the end of the second and eight-plus minutes of the third . New York came up short all three times, posting a meager three shots, looking out of sync and failing even to get a shot on the third man-advantage. As Larry Brooks noted: "the team’s greatest offensive strength had turned into a fatal weakness at the most inopportune time."
Failing then, again, again and again pretty much sealed the team's fate. Live by the power play during the regular season, die by the powerless play in the postseason.
5)
Flat first period - we all knew Pitt would come out flying to start the game in front of their home crowd, just as New York did in Game 1. Unlike the Penguins who weathered the storm only down 1-0, the Rangers were blown away, ending the frame down 4-1. The Blueshirts were outhit, outhustled and outworked in all three zones in that opening stanza.
When asked for his assessment of the first period, Chris Kreider paused for a very long time before he answered:
I don't think we got to our game nearly quick enough. I don't think we were playing together. Especially at this point in the season, effort is not something you question. It's a matter of working smart, not just hard. Good learning experience for our group...Obviously, I liked the response, but there's been moments over the course of the year where we put ourselves in positions like that and have been able to claw back. But that's not something you can do in the playoffs. Something we have to rectify and rectify quickly.
New York rebounded in the second after a kick in the rear speech from Gallant. Entering the third, they had to win one period to take a 2-1 series lead. They failed miserably.
It was just, 'Man up,'" Gallant relayed. "'They’re a good team we’re playing over there, but there's no difference. Their rink size is the same length and you’ve got to go out and play the game. Let’s man up and be men about this. We're not going to die. We're not going to sit back and let them continue to play like that against us.' And we came out and we caught them pretty good. We battled back in that hockey game.
6)
Top lines - on paper, this was the least effective game so far for Pittsburgh's top line of Jake Guentzel, Sidney Crosby and Bryan Rust, who did not score any goals in five-on-five situations and were limited to just four shots and two scoring chances. But watching the game, you didn't get that sense, as each time Crosby touched the puck, you expected a scoring chance to occur. The same cannot be said for the Kreider-Zib-Frank Vatrano line, even with the goal by Vatrano, who showed his speed and shot on the marker.
Zib has to be better. plain and simple. We know he can be streaky and has improved his game in all three zones. That has yet to really be on display in this series. Pitt winning despite a so-called less than dominant performance by their top line, getting secondary scoring, also a question coming in, has to give them confidence. How will New York respond?
7)
Wacky playoffs. Who expected Washington to be up 2-1 on Florida, Tampa down 2-1 to Toronto. Dallas up 2-1 on Calgary. In the first two series, big name goalies have also faltered. The only series fully going according to expectations has been Colorado-Nashville. I guess the regular season may really have been overrated, though none of these series have had their final chapters written. This means that maybe what is happening in this match up is not as much of an aberration as we think.
New York Rangers Blogger • 
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