Recap: Laba’s First NHL Goal the Lone Bright Spot in 5–1 Loss to Calgary

Following a disappointing overtime loss on home ice, the New York Rangers set out on a four game road trip through Western Canada as they took on the Calgary Flames. With Matt Rempe not making the trip after suffering an injury in his tilt with Ryan Reaves, Brennan Othmann makes his season debut after being called up on Friday. Here’s how the team lined up this evening: 

First Period

Another rough start for the Rangers as they gave up the first goal of the game less than two minutes in. They were caught chasing the play in their own end of the ice and a shot from Nazem Kadri was able to beat Igor Shesterkin cleanly to make it a 1-0 game early. Not only was this the second game in a row they’ve given up an early goal, but it’s the seventh game of the season they’ve allowed the first goal. Worth noting, this is game number ten on the season. 

Things went from bad to worse as the Rangers earned the first penalty of the night just two minutes later as Matthew Robertson was called for cross-checking Blake Coleman away from the play. The good news was they were able to successfully fight off the man advantage. The bad news was that they were approaching the midway mark of the opening period and were being out-shot 8-2. 

Things were looking worse as Alexis Lafrenière got in the way of Shesterkin as Kevin Bahl let a shot go from the point over the glove side to find the back of the net. It would only be 2-0 for a brief moment as Noah Laba won the face-off and finished on an excellent drive to the net. 2-1 game. 

Things slowed down from that point on but the Rangers were beginning to spend more time in their opposition's end of the ice. The fact that they were able to respond immediately to that second goal was encouraging and it was great to see Laba being rewarded for his efforts. Despite a couple of solid shifts, the Rangers fell apart in the final minute, nearly giving up another late period goal. After giving up goals in the final minute of two periods in San Jose the other night, focusing on closing out the period is something they definitely need to improve on. 

Shots after twenty were just 12-5 in Calgary’s favor, however they were credited with over thirty shot attempts and had the slight edge in the high danger count. The only thing that seemed to go right for the Rangers was in the face-off circle as they won 13 of 21 draws for a win percentage of 62%. 

Second Period

The Rangers opened the period with a couple of good chances. The first came off the rush for Mika Zibanejad off a feed from Lafrenière and the second almost became Laba’s second goal of the night as he was shut down on a partial breakaway. On the flipside, the Flames had a pair of chances that Vladislav Gavrikov came up huge on with some really impressive defensive efforts. 

About eight minutes into the period, the Rangers were back to the penalty kill as Zibanejad was called for holding the stick of Zayne Parekh. Calgary continued to generate offense on the man advantage but the Rangers came out of the penalty kill unscathed. Zibanejad nearly converted on a breakaway as he came out of the penalty box but a big save by Dustin Wolf kept the score 2-1 in his team’s favor. 

After another odd-man rush for the Rangers, the Flames went the other way with it and a quick shot from Yegor Sharangovich hit off Shesterkin and bounced in to extend the lead 3-1. 

There’s a lot going on with this team right now, and it shouldn’t all boil down to the play of one player but you’d really like to see Othmann not hesitate to shoot the puck in that situation. The Rangers continued to generate some scoring chances but Wolf wasn’t budging as he came up with some big saves. The Flames went back to the power play in the final two minutes of play as J.T. Miller was called for high sticking. The Rangers killed it off but were now down by two heading into the final period of regulation. 

Third Period

Down by two, the Rangers were controlling play through the start of the period and after about six minutes, finally got their first crack at the power play. Connor Zary was called for holding the stick of Laba. The top unit had some looks but ended up giving up an odd-man rush where Mikael Backlund fed Coleman who had a wide open net to shoot at on the doorstep to make it a 4-1 hockey game. 

The wheels were quickly falling off this thing as the Rangers gave up another shorthanded rush to Calgary, this time a 2-0 that Shesterkin was able to shut down. They had some chances of their own but Dustin Wolf continued to come up with the saves with no signs of giving anything else up.

It already felt as though this game was over after the Rangers failed to do anything after that fourth goal but Coleman's second goal of the night with five and a half to go was certainly the final nail in the coffin. A shot from far out that deflected off a poorly positioned Lafrenière extended Calgary's lead to 5-1.

That would do it for this one as the Rangers losing streak extends to three. Another extremely disappointing showing as the team's strong play at the start of the season has quickly faded and resulted in a ton of concerns for how this season could play out.

The Rangers are back at it Tuesday night as they'll take on the Vancouver Canucks.