Blueshirts blunder, fall to Penguins in overtime
Amid all the Rangers’ struggles to begin this season, Tuesday marked the most devastating night yet.
They were less than a minute away from a regulation win before Pittsburgh tied it. And then came the final blow, coming off a shockingly poor play by the Ranger captain Ryan McDonagh behind his net, throwing the puck right into Phil Kessel at the left post and allowing him an easy pass to Evgeni Malkin for the winner 58 seconds into overtime, dealing the Blueshirts a 5-4 loss.
“I obviously let the team down in overtime,” McDonagh said. “I mean, I should be able to make a read there and keep it on the boards instead of trying to go through them. A really, really bad hockey play by me.”
They at least got a point in moving to 1-5-1, avoiding matching the 1-6 start from the 1959-60 season, but after playing inspired hockey the second half of regulation and so close to victory, this serves as their most stinging result thus far.
“It’s really frustrating, disappointing, hard to accept,” Henrik Lundqvist said.
Pittsburgh had an extra attacker on when Sidney Crosby banked a shot from behind the net off Lundqvist’s stick and in for the equalizer with 55.3 seconds remaining in regulation. Crosby waited out a possible hand pass until Kevin Shattenkirk touched the puck to wipe it out, and Crosby quickly pounced. A Crosby double-minor for high-sticking in the second allowed the Rangers to score two power-play goals and take a 3-2 lead.
“He banged it off me. It’s not the first time that happened,” Lundqvist said. “As a goalie you just need to make sure you’re alert. I tried to just deflect the pass, but when it goes right at you sometimes you need some luck.”
A Patric Hornqvist power-play goal made it 3-3 late in the second before Michael Grabner put the Rangers ahead at 8:00 of the third.
It is McDonagh’s stunning miscue that will be the lasting memory of this game. It came off a defensive-zone faceoff win following an icing and with both Kessel and Malkin pressuring while Mika Zibanejad and Mats Zuccarello went up ice. McDonagh, off to a rough start this year, called it “a heartbreaker” and “a crusher” to lose in such a fashion.
“You know how much he cares and how much he wants to do the right thing,” Alain Vigneault said. “There’s always that fine line between wanting to do too much to help the team. Ryan’s a great captain and a great person, and he’s gonna do like the rest of our group. He’s gonna work himself out of this and we’re gonna be on the right track real soon.”
And so it goes for the Rangers, who now have the Islanders on Thursday and not only have to find a way from keeping this start to the season from spiraling out of control, but must do so after such a deflating end to their evening.
“To sit here and not come up with the two points at the end with the way we played down the stretch,” Lundqvist said, “It hurts.”