Rangers fall to Capitals, drop in Metropolitan Division standings

The excuse was there for the Rangers to lean on — that their stunning, 4-0 loss to the Washington Capitals on Tuesday night at Madison Square Garden could have been chalked up to them being out of sorts after coming back from four days off for the NHL’s Christmas break.

But Gerard Gallant, the Rangers coach, wasn’t having it.

“Let’s face it, the one team showed up ready to win and wanted to win a hockey game,’’ he said. “And the other team didn’t.’’

The Capitals, Gallant pointed out, were coming off their Christmas break, too. And the coach also didn’t want to hear about how maybe the officials may have missed a call or two that hurt the Rangers.

“We didn’t get any breaks tonight from the officials,’’ Gallant said. “(But) we were garbage tonight. We didn’t deserve to win. They (the officials) had nothing to do with us losing, trust me. I didn’t think they were great, but they had nothing to do with us losing the hockey game.’’

Marcus Johansson scored on a five-on-three power play in the first period, Erik Gustafsson and Lars Eller scored in the final three minutes of the second period, Conor Sheary scored into an empty net late in the third, and goaltender Darcy Kuemper stopped 32 Rangers shots as Washington won for the 10th time in their last 11 games to improve to 20-13-4 and leapfrog both the Rangers and Pittsburgh Penguins to move into third place in the Metropolitan Division.

The Rangers, who fell to 19-12-5 (43 points) weren’t thrilled with the penalty call against Ryan Lindgren or the one against Chris Kreider that put them down two men for 1:40, but the goal that was credited to Johansson looked as though it was actually put into the net by Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba as he tried to clear the rebound of a shot by Evgeny Kuznetsov that had been saved by Igor Shesterkin.

Still, after that goal, the Rangers were in the game until late in the second period. Shesterkin, who made 26 saves in the game, was doing amazing things to keep his team in the contest, including an incredible glove stop on an effort by Johansson on a Washington power play, with 1:40 left in the second period and the Rangers down 2-0. But the two Caps goals in the final 2:59 of the second period were too much to overcome.

But according to second-year defenseman Braden Schneider, the game wasn’t as close as the score made it look, at that point.

“Fortunately, for us, Shesty was holding us in there,’’ Schneider said. “And yeah, two goals late in the period, they deflate you. But I thought they probably could have got a few more, to be honest, in that period.’’

The Caps went up 2-0 when Gustafsson scored on a rebound at 17:01 of the second period. The Rangers challenged the play, alleging Sheary had interfered with Shesterkin while the goalie was in the crease as Gustafsson’s shot was going in. The officials reviewed the play on video, but concluded there was no interference. Gallant disagreed with that ruling.

“There was goalie interference,’’ Gallant said. “I mean, (Sheary) went in the crease. We didn’t put him in the crease. He made contact. It wasn’t much contact, but there was enough contact for me.’’

Eller scored with 36.2 seconds remaining in the period to make it 3-0, and that one hurt, Gallant admitted. Still, Trouba, the Rangers’ captain, expected more fight from his team in the third.

“I thought we could come out in the third and respond a little bit better,’’ Trouba said. “There isn’t a whole lot to say — just a sloppy game. We can’t keep playing that game. When we play with the intensity that we did going into the break, I think we know what kind of team we can be. That (Tuesday night) wasn’t us.’’

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.