A CASE OF THE BLUES
Rangers lose fourth of first five
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Make it four out of five the Rangers have lost to open the season after being dominated in the third period of their 3-1 defeat to the Blue Jackets Friday night, sloppy puck play and rough defensive moments wasting a 40-save Henrik Lundqvist gem.
Teams in stretches like these to start a season may show signs of fracture, which is something Rick Nash is cognizant of and wants to prevent.
“It’s a tough time for us right now. We’re losing. I think we’ve all got to stick together,” Nash said. “This is when you get a character check. It’s easy for guys to start pointing the finger and blaming, but good teams stick together in these times.”
Lundqvist was extremely sharp throughout. Columbus equalized in the waning moments of the second on a shot that deflected off Mika Zibanejad and the right post.
The Blue Jackets then poured it on in the third, outshooting the Rangers 11-0 over the first 6:35 of the period as they took advantage of poor puck decisions by the visitors.
Artemi Panarin then caught Kevin Hayes, who scored the Rangers’ goal, flat-footed and was allowed an inside cut by Kevin Shattenkirk to get space on his forehand and break the deadlock at 7:25 before Columbus added an empty-netter.
“Just coming up short. It’s not enough. We need more obviously,” Lundqvist said. “The one thing we have to clean up is the turnovers. The amount of turnovers I think is really killing us. We’re a fast team when we have the puck in the right place, but we have to defend a lot because of the amount of turnovers. That’s something we really have to discuss and do better.”
The Rangers have four goals in their last three games, three at even strength.
“Right now every line seems to have one guy fighting it, one guy just playing OK, and it’s not good enough right now,” Alain Vigneault said. “We need to get our game in order. It’s there for spurts, it’s there for moments, but in this league, the competitive league that it is, you’ve got to play for 60 minutes and we’re not doing that right now.”
They nearly had to fight uphill within the first half-minute for the second straight game after a bad Hayes giveaway led to a Matt Calvert goal, but the Rangers successfully challenged that Calvert interfered with Lundqvist and the goal was disallowed.
On Saturday against the Devils the Rangers begin a stretch of six straight games at home. They need to turn things around quickly.
“We can’t start panicking,” Mats Zuccarello said, “but obviously we’ve got to play better.”