Rangers collapse against Oilers, losing after giving up four goals in third period

When the Rangers visited Edmonton on Oct. 26, they didn’t have to worry about defending against Oilers superstar Connor McDavid, who missed the game at Rogers Place with an upper-body injury. The Rangers won easily.

But McDavid was back in the lineup Friday night, and the Oilers — under new coach Kris Knoblauch, the former coach of the Rangers’ Hartford Wolf Pack farm team — were coming into Madison Square Garden with seven wins in their last 10 games. So this one figured to be a much more challenging game for the Blueshirts.

In the final game of their three-game pre-Christmas trip to the tri-state area, the Oilers scored four goals in the third period to beat the Rangers, 4-3, in front of a stunned Garden crowd.

The Rangers seemed equally stunned afterward and at a loss to explain why they were outplayed so badly in the final two periods of their penultimate game before the NHL’s Christmas break.

“I thought we were missing energy,’’ coach Peter Laviolette said. “Throughout the entire game we just didn’t have the ‘pop’ that we needed. When we did start to skate a little bit toward them, we went east-west, turned it over and just kind of killed everything.’’

The Rangers (22-8-1) led 1-0 entering the third period, thanks in large part to some great work by goaltender Jonathan Quick. He made 18 saves in the first two periods, including 11 in a lopsided second period.

But Quick couldn’t keep the Oilers (15-15-1) at bay the entire game. Edmonton got goals 70 seconds apart by Zach Hyman and Evander Kane and took a 2-1 lead at the 4:17 mark of the period.

Laviolette called his timeout after Kane’s goal to try to halt the Oilers’ momentum, but it didn’t help. Goals by Warren Foegele at 6:36 and Ryan McLeod at 9:52 made it 4-1.

The Rangers tried to rally late, but it was too late. Mika Zibanejad’s six-on-four goal at 15:42 pulled them to within 4-2 and Will Cuylle scored on a shot that crossed the goal line just before time expired to make it 4-3.

Blake Wheeler opened the scoring at 11:03 of the first period, banging in a slick, between-the-legs backhand feed from Zibanejad from behind the net.

The Rangers took no solace from making the score more respectable.

“I thought throughout the whole game, it wasn’t a great game by us by any means,’’ Zibanejad said. “I didn’t think we got up to our level. We still have a lead going into the third, [but] we’ve just got to be better than that.

“But thankfully we get a chance to redeem ourselves tomorrow and finish off on a good note before the break.’’

The Rangers will close out their pre-Christmas schedule by hosting Buffalo on Saturday at the Garden.

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.