Rangers stumble out of gate, fall to Avalanche
Falling to what was by far the worst team in the NHL last season on opening night certainly wasn’t the way the Rangers wanted to start the season, and they are guilty of some mistakes that led to their 4-2 loss to the Avalanche Thursday night at the Garden.
But ultimately the Rangers tipped their cap to Semyon Varlamov, who made 37 saves and whom they couldn’t beat at even strength while failing to find the equalizer despite a strong third period in which they outshot Colorado 14-6, all the while lamenting the odd-man rushes that doomed them.
“Looking at the result here and what happened, I think that’s where they really hurt us,” Henrik Lundqvist said. “Their ‘D’ jumped in almost every time to make it a 3-on-2 or 4-on-3. Other than that, I thought we played really well, good energy (and) we created a lot.”
It wasn’t a sharp opener for Lundqvist, who allowed three goals on 25 shots, including Tyson Barrie’s go-ahead goal with 2:10 left in the second period on which he was beaten stick-side.
The Garden crowd seemed stunned when just past the halfway mark of the first period Mikko Rantanen buried a one-timer on the power play to put the Rangers behind by two, all wondering if their opening night had already been ruined.
They’d be reinvigorated before period’s end having witnessed the Rangers’ new power play with Blueshirt debutant Kevin Shattenkirk quarterbacking the top unit. A sharp pass by Shattenkirk set Zibanejad up with an open net for the first goal at 17:28 as Varlamov was getting up and spinning around amid a disorienting bundle of bodies.
Zibanejad, he of the fiveyear, $26.75 million contract signed over the summer, doubled his account with another power play goal with just two seconds remaining in the first.
While Shattenkirk, who had a contingent of roughly 120 friends and family on hand, made his mark on the man-advantage, he failed to box out Matt Duchene early in the first, allowing Duchene a second-chance opportunity which put Colorado ahead 1-0.
“The result still kind of stings,” Shattenkirk said. “When I look back on (Thursday) a long time from now it’ll obviously be a great moment for me. It’s still a special night in my career, but right now I’m just a little upset with the result and some plays out there that I felt like I could’ve had a better effect on the game and help our team out a little more.”
Encouraging signs existed, but errors will have to be cleaned up against a forceful Maple Leafs attack Saturday night.
“There’s no doubt that their defense beat us up the ice a couple of times and our gap could have been just a little tighter,” Alain Vigneault said. “We could have taken some of those opportunities away, but the counter side to that is I thought we played fast and had a lot of good looks. Best player on the ice was their goaltender tonight.”