Rangers get a blanking
Craig Anderson stopped 27 shots for his first shutout of the season as the Ottawa Senators beat the Rangers 3-0 on Thursday night.
Matt Duchene had a goal and an assist. Drake Batherson and Magnus Paajarvi also scored as the Senators won their second consecutive game.
It was Anderson's 10th win this season, his first shutout since Dec. 16 and the 41st of his career.
Henrik Lundqvist had a rough start but finished with 31 saves for the Rangers.
He gave the Senators full credit, saying: "They deserved the win." But he also said the Rangers need to be better on the road after dropping to 37-2 away from home.
"I feel like it's not just one game, it's starting to become a road thing," Lundqvist acknowledged. "It's something we need to adjust and correct real quick."
Rangers coach David Quinn thought his team got worse rather than better as the game went on after falling behind 2-0 in the first period.
"During the course of a game there's going to be stretches where you don't play well," Quinn said. "You hope to make them better. You hope to stop them and recover, be mentally tough enough to get your wits about you and regroup and we just never did it. We just got worse and worse and worse as the game went on."
Trailing 2-0, the Rangers thought they had cut the Senators' lead in half near the midpoint of the second period but the goal was waved off because the referee had blown the whistle prior to the puck crossing the goal line.
With the Senators dominating most of the action, Colin White nearly made it 3-0 when he rang a shot off the post.
Ottawa did go ahead 3-0 late in the second after an impressive passing display that ended with Duchene scoring his team-leading 12th.
With an assist on Duchene's goal, Ryan Dzingel picked up his 100th career point.
The Senators jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first period.