Rangers suffer deflating shutout loss to Hurricanes at the Garden
The homestand started off so well for the Rangers. Convincing victories in the first two games over Ottawa and Philadelphia had them knocking on the door of a playoff spot, feeling like their comeback from an awful December was just about complete.
Now, not so much.
After suffering a stunning last-second loss to Colorado on Sunday, things went from bad to worse in the homestand finale Tuesday night as the Rangers dropped their second straight, 4-0, to the new-look Carolina Hurricanes to close the homestand 2-2 and finish January 8-3-3.
Andrei Svechnikov scored two goals and had an assist for Carolina, the first coming in the first minute of the first period and the second in the last minute of the second period. That gave the visitors a 2-0 lead entering the third.
Carolina scored twice in the first two-and-a-half minutes of the third and the Rangers went down quietly after that. Hurricanes goalie Frederik Andersen, playing only his seventh game of the season, made 22 saves to earn his first shutout.
If there was a silver lining for the Rangers, who fell to 24-22-4 (52 points), it was that they didn’t lose any ground in their playoff chase. The three teams in front of them in the race who played Tuesday — Boston, Tampa Bay and Montreal — all lost in regulation, though the Islanders, who are behind them, beat Colorado to pull a little closer in the chase.
The Rangers remained three points behind Tampa Bay for the final wild-card spot.
“You start a game, you go down 1-0, it’s a big game . . . against one of the [Metropolitan] Division leaders. That’s a tough one,’’ Rangers coach Peter Laviolette said. “I thought we had better [chances] in the second period . . . [the second goal] that’s a tough one to give up. You’re 1-0 at that point. We could have scored on some of our chances, but we’re not able to capitalize. So you go down 2-0.’’
Svechnikov’s first goal came 56 seconds into the game. It was the fifth time this season that the Rangers have allowed a goal in the first minute of the game, and the ninth time they’ve allowed one in the first two minutes.
They did fight back and things stabilized for the rest of the first period. But in the second, after Igor Shesterkin (22 saves) had kept Carolina off the board in the first half of the period, Svechnikov scored his second goal with 30.9 seconds left.
The Rangers had just killed a penalty to Ryan Lindgren and Vincent Trocheck, at the end of his shift, found himself on a partial breakaway in the final minute, with Carolina defenseman Shayne Gostisbehere chasing him. Trocheck opted not to shoot, but instead tried to drop a pass to a trailing K’Andre Miller. But the pass didn’t get through.
“Gostisbehere was chasing me down on my forehand, I couldn’t get the puck to my forehand and I was too tight to Andersen to get it around him,’’ Trocheck said. “He was right on top of it, so I could have shot it and buried into his chest or try to make a play to [Miller]. And unluckily, it hit a skate.’’
Gostisbehere corralled the puck and passed to Mikko Rantanen, who had been acquired from Colorado in the blockbuster trade Friday night that also brought forward Taylor Hall from Chicago and sent forwards Martin Necas and Jack Drury to Colorado. Rantanen passed cross-ice to Jackson Blake, who passed it back, and Rantanen centered for Svechnikov, who tapped the puck in behind an out of position Shesterkin.
Goals by Sebastian Aho (from Svechnikov) at 1:04 of the third period and by Seth Jarvis (from Jordan Martinook) at 2:30 made it 4-0 and ended any doubt about this one. The fact that the Rangers went quietly after that — they had just three shots on goal in the third period — annoyed Laviolette.
Artemi Panarin said the 2-0 deficit should not have been insurmountable.
“I mean, two is more than one, obviously, but in hockey in five minutes, sometimes people score three or four,’’ he said. “So, obviously, it doesn’t help, for sure, but it is what it is. We’ve got to deal with that.’’