Rangers dominated by Sabres as Igor Shesterkin is pulled after allowing five goals

The Rangers have come to rely on Igor Shesterkin to be Superman. But as great as the 28-year-old goaltender is, and as much as he already has done this season, he’s not going to be bulletproof every night.

He certainly wasn’t Thursday night against the Buffalo Sabres at Madison Square Garden. Shesterkin, who entered with the highest save percentage in the league among goalies who had played at least five games, was pulled from the net for the first time this season after allowing five goals on 12 shots. And without a heroic performance from their goaltender, the Rangers ended up with a dispiriting 6-1 loss.

“It was a bad day,’’ Shesterkin said. “We need to turn this page and be ready for the next game.’’

None of Shesterkin’s teammates would point the finger at their goalie, who has been their best player, by far, this season.

“It’s more a testament to us, not to him,’’ forward Vincent Trocheck said. “I don’t think that he’s getting pulled because of how he’s playing. It’s how we’re playing. That one’s on us . . . He’s been doing a lot for us through his first 12 games. We owed him one.’’

The Sabres (6-7-1) scored on the game’s first shift when Rasmus Dahlin took a pass from fellow defenseman Bowen Byram above the left circle, walked to the faceoff dot and flipped a soft wrist shot that somehow slipped between Shesterkin’s legs 26 seconds into the game.

Shesterkin had no explanation for how the puck got past him. “I already forgot about first goal,’’ he said. “It means nothing for me right now. I just want to keep focus on next day.’’

“That’s a weird one,’’ Trocheck said, acknowledging that it was a shocking start. “I feel like, system-wise, we played it all right, and then they get a good look off of it. And it sucks because it’s the first shift of the game. But you’ve got to bounce back from those.’’

They did, to a degree. The Rangers (8-3-1) didn’t allow any more goals in the period and outshot Buffalo 8-6 in the first 20 minutes. But after they opened the second period on a power play for the first 1:58 of the period and failed to convert, the Sabres took a 2-0 lead on a goal by Dylan Cozens at 2:45.

And that, Trocheck said, was the one that killed them.

“It was just downhill from there,’’ he said. “We just lacked aggression, lacked battling. We’ve got to be better.

“We needed to have more fight, more fight to get back into the game.’’

When Tage Thompson beat Shesterkin from the high slot at 11:39, that started a run of three goals in a 2-minute, 12-second span that led to Shesterkin’s departure. Jordan Greenway got free at the back door and scored at 12:09 to make it 4-0, and Lafferty’s goal at 13:51 ended Shesterkin’s night.

“There’s no excuse for what happened today,’’ Mika Zibanejad said. “We’ve just got to understand that that wasn’t good enough and go to work tomorrow and get back to doing what we do.’’

Will Cuylle got the Rangers on the board at 4:21 of the third period, deflecting in a backhand shot by Zac Jones. But that didn’t start any kind of turnaround. Zach Benson made it 6-1 with his goal at 11:55.

Penalties to both teams had a say in things, but in the third period, when he tried all kinds of different things, Peter Laviolette switched up his forward lines, putting Artemi Panarin with Trocheck and Cuylle and reuniting the Chris Kreider-Zibanejad-Reilly Smith line.

The fourth line of Adam Edstrom, Sam Carrick and Jimmy Vesey got a lot of ice time, but forwards Alexis Lafreniere and Filip Chytil didn’t get much. Late in the period, those two and Kaapo Kakko reunited for a shift.

“I thought the guys were off the mark tonight with some of the things they were doing,’’ Laviolette said. “I tried to get a couple of the guys back out there and move them around. I didn’t think we were very good. The guys that seemed to have a little bit more pop to me were the guys I was trying to put back on the ice.”

Notes & quotes: Panarin got an assist on Cuylle’s goal, giving him 800 career points . . . Rookie defenseman Victor Mancini and forward Jonny Brodzinski were scratched for the second straight game.

By Colin Stephenson

colin.stephenson@newsday.comColinSNewsday

Colin Stephenson covers the Rangers for Newsday. He has spent more than two decades covering the NHL and just about every sports team in the New York metropolitan area.