Rangers Vs. Canadiens Recap: Poor Offensive Performance Downs Rangers 3-1 to Canadiens
The New York Rangers either forgot to show up tonight, or just didn't care altogether. The offense wasn't able to generate much of anything, and were downed by the Canadiens 3-1.
After a big 2-1 win over the Washington Capitals on Sunday evening, the Rangers rebounded with very poor showing against the Montreal Canadiens. The offense was pretty much nonexistent tonight, and the power play failed the Rangers in the final three minutes of the game.
If you were looking for some action in the first period, there was pretty much nothing. The shots were 5-3 for the Rangers, and that's pretty much the only exciting statistic from the first period. The Rangers did come out with a good start by getting pucks in deep, but nothing ultimately came of it. So after rocking a majority of the fans to sleep, the Rangers and Canadiens came out for what we all hoped would be a better second period.
Once again, the Rangers had a good start to the period by getting pucks in deep, and controlling the board play. However, the Canadiens were still dictating the play, and were slowing down the Rangers, which as a result made for a very boring game from both teams. Finally, we had some action about midway through the second period as Anton Stralman banged home his own rebound on Carey Price, and the Rangers jumped out to a 1-0 lead. Marian Gaborik made a great play picking the puck up at the blue line, and eventually got tripped on the play. Gaborik went down, and puck came right over the Derek Stepan, who slid it over to the pinching Anton Stralman.
Just six minutes later, Mac Pacioretty ripped home a one-timer from the high slot after going nearly undetected by the Rangers defenders. What made matters worse was Ryan McDonagh had cut right in front of Henrik Lundqvist as the shot was taken, and Lundqvist never saw a second of the shot. Not to mention, the initial dump in that started the play should have been whistled down for icing, but for some reason was not.
It would only take the Canadiens 1:48 into the third period to take their first lead of the evening on a goal coming from Alex Galchenyuk, his second goal of the season. The Rangers had a good chance in the offensive zone, which eventually lead to the 3-on-1 odd-man rush by the Canadiens. Ryan Callahan made a great effort on the back check, but over shot the drop pass, and left Brandon Prust wide open to make the cross-ice feed over the Galchenyuk. With about six minutes remaining in the game, the Rangers killed off a huge power play by the Canadiens, on very weak holding call to Brad Richards.
After gaining some momentum, the Rangers had their own power play with just over three minutes to play. The Rangers didn't make it easy on themselves, and absolutely blew up the power play which could have easily tied up the game. Both Richards and Michael Del Zotto looked absolutely lost out there, and bobbled the puck which lead to turnovers.
It was an overall bad effort by the Rangers, and they were definitely missing the play of Rick Nash tonight. Just by being on the ice, Nash opens up the game so much. Not saying that's any sort of excuse for the lost tonight, but the Rangers definitely felt the impact from that one.