Rangers vs Bruins: Bruins Down Rangers with Five Unanswered Goals
The New York Rangers were thoroughly dominated this evening by the Boston Bruins and were defeated 7-4 at Madison Square Garden. New York opened the game with an early goal from Micheal Haley, but five unanswered goals from the Bruins was just too much of a task to rebound from. Henrik Lundqvist certainly had his plate full this evening as well, and turned away 21 of the 25 shots he faced before being pulled at the end of the second period.
During the opening minutes of this game, you could certainly tell that the Bruins were going to make this a long night for the Rangers. Their forecheck was relentless, they were swarming the puck and they were forcing the Rangers into careless turnovers. Despite barely touching the puck in the first period, Micheal Haley opened the scoring for the Rangers on a rebound chance in front.
The initial shot came from Brendan Smith, who tossed a shot on goal from the top of the circle and it gave Jaroslav Halak some trouble. New York was fortunate enough to be leading after one period, and their luck quickly ran out as the second period began.
The Bruins scored four unanswered goals from Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand (x2) and Charlie Coyle and jumped out to a very commanding 4-1 lead. Boston was the much better team right from the opening faceoff, and you could sense the looming onslaught if they were able to get one on the board.
Following a miserable second period, it didn’t get much better in the third period with an early goal by Zdeno Chara to make it a 5-1 game. Pavel Buchnevich gave the Rangers some life about eight minutes after Chara’s goal as he capped off a beautiful passing play between Artemi Panarin and Tony DeAngelo.
Patrice Bergeron’s fourth of the season reinstated the Bruins four-goal lead a short time later to make it 5-1 in favor of Boston. The Rangers finally got some extended offensive zone time with a little under two minutes remaining in regulation, and they turned that into a pair of goals from Chris Kreider and Brady Skjei.
Chris Kreider’s goal came off of a rebound in front of the net on the power play, and Brady Skjei slammed home a rebound of his own right off of the ensuing faceoff. Patrice Bergeron finally closed out the game at the 19:15 mark of the third period, and capped off the hat trick with his fifth goal of the season.
Following tonight’s deflating loss to the Boston Bruins, they Rangers have one final game remaining on their homestand on Tuesday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning.