Rangers come up short in loss to NHL-best Bruins

If the Rangers had looked at Thursday night’s game against the NHL’s top team, the Boston Bruins, as a measuring stick, an opportunity to see how they stacked up against the best the league has to offer, then they learned an unpleasant lesson:

Right now, at least, they don’t stack up all that well.

Playing on the second night of a back-to-back, the Bruins scored early in each period and methodically dispatched the Rangers, 3-1, at Madison Square Garden to win their fourth straight game and their eighth in the last nine.

And Rangers coach Gerard Gallant was not happy about it.

“I thought we played a good game for 50 minutes out of the 60, [or] 55 out of the 60,’’ Gallant said. “But then we played real bad and gave up some goals that shouldn’t happen. Two of their goals shouldn’t happen.

“For me, if we play the whole game, a solid 60 minutes, it’s a different game. For 50 minutes, I thought it was pretty even. Both teams had a lot of scoring chances and goaltending was good at both ends. But again, we gave up those easy goals, and you can’t do that. And they’re not goaltender easy goals; they’re defensive zone, odd-man rushes, you know, stuff like that.’’

Pavel Zacha (1:19 of the first period), Patrice Bergeron (4:42 of the second) and Connor Clifton (:28 of the third) scored for the Bruins and backup goaltender Jeremy Swayman made 31 saves. Boston is 36-5-4.

The Rangers’ lone goal came from defenseman Ben Harpur, who spoiled Swayman’s shutout bid with his first goal as a Ranger at 15:37 of the third period with a shot from the point and a screen from Filip Chytil.

“You certainly don’t want to be behind that early,’’ said Rangers forward Jimmy Vesey, who started the game on the fourth line but got switched onto the second line with Artemi Panarin and Vincent Trocheck in the middle of the second period. “It kind of changes the complexion of the game a little bit. But, I mean, they’re a good team . . . They play the right way and they’re patient.’’

The Bruins should have been the tired team after playing the Islanders on Wednesday night on Long Island. The Rangers had been off since Monday. But it was Boston that had the early jump, and Zacha got the visitors on the board when he redirected David Krejci’s soft slap shot over the shoulder of Igor Shesterkin (24 saves) for his eighth goal.

The Rangers were under pressure for most of the period until they seemed to gain some momentum after killing a five-on-three Bruins power play late in the period. They went on to finish the period with a flurry and even got a power play with 47.2 seconds remaining that carried over to the second period.

However, they were unable to score on that power play (they were 0-for-3 in the game and are 1-for-19 in the last six games), and Bergeron scored shortly after it was over to put Boston up 2-0.

The Rangers got a second power play near the end of the second period that carried over into the third, and after they failed on that one, Clifton came out of the penalty box and scored on a two-on-one off a pass from Brad Marchand to make it 3-0.

“I don’t know how many odd-man rushes they had tonight, but it seemed like a lot,’’ Gallant said. “We had some odd-man rushes too, and we had a couple of real good chances — Bread [Artemi Panarin] on the side of the net [in the second period]. We just didn’t bury them. And Swayman made some big saves. And our goalie was excellent, too. It probably should have been a 5-4 game, really.’’

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.