The New York Rangers came into today’s game looking to
respond from their awful performance on Friday night and get a monkey off their
back against the rival Flyers. They were
able to successfully pull off the former of those goals, for half the game at
least, but they would fall to Philadelphia for the fourth consecutive time this
season. At this point it is not an
exaggeration to say they own the Rangers and these dreams that many fans have
that this team can beat Philly in a playoff series are more like fantasies right
now.
At some point the Rangers are also going to have to
realize that against all teams, but especially the better ones, you have to
play a 60 minute game if you want to win.
Instead what we had today was a game eerily similar to many of late
where the Rangers trail by two after the second period, making a furious
comeback attempt in the third and come up short.
New York came out like an inspired team early in the
first period. The team pushed the pace,
got the forecheck working and creating a number of early scoring chances, which
actually netted a reward for a change. At 12:43 of the first period Wojtek Wolski
would give the Rangers the first goal in the game for the first time in eight
games. Ryan McDonagh would fire a shot
from the point which was wide on the short side and it would end up on Wolski’s
stick in the slot. His shot would tickle
through Boucher, but Wolski would make it a no doubter as he got his stick on
the puck again on the goal-line before Boucher could glove it.
After the goal the Rangers forgot they have to keep
playing that way and the Flyers would dominate the rest of the first
period. With just over three minutes to
play in the first, Jeff Carter would score and erase all the good work New York
had done to that point in the game. The
goal itself was relatively lucky as the Flyer threw the puck at the slot and it
went off Carter’s stick, through the traffic in front and beat Lundqvist
five-hole.
Following the first period Marian Gaborik did not
return to the game and after the game it was announced that he has a concussion,
which is not thought to have been suffered in this game.
The second period was abysmal. The Flyers wanted everything more than the
Rangers and unlike New York, when they got their chances they cashed them in. The Flyers were given a gift power play just
past the mid-point of the period when Wolski was given two minutes for boarding
on an obvious dive. Philly would score just
23 seconds into the man advantage when after Lundqivst made a tremendous save
on Jeff Carter, Carter threw a beautiful backhand pass to Claude Giroux who
lifted the puck over a downed Lundqvist.
The Flyers would add another later in the period, Dan
Carcillo would get behind both Ryan McDonagh and Michael Sauer and slide a soft
backhand shot by Lundqvist to make it 3-1.
Brian Boucher would go down just under five minutes
into the period after taking a knee to the head from teammate Kimmo Timmonen,
but he would stay in the game. Just 34
seconds after that Derek Stepan would get a tap in goal to make it 3-2 with
plenty of time remaining on the clock.
Despite dominating the rest of the period the Rangers
would fall and Versteeg would cap it with an empty-netter with 45.3 seconds left
on the clock.
- Derek Stepan was everywhere today and his line with Wolski and Zuccarello was clearly the Rangers best as it was when it was together earlier in the year. Hopefully they will be left together now.
- Ryan McDonagh keeps up his tremendous play.
More later when the Rangers announce the recall ahead
of the huge game at Carolina on Tuesday.
