NEW YORK — Vincent Trocheck said after Friday’s game he felt there’s been a cloud over the New York Rangers during their recent struggles. Winning brings sunshine that can clear away those clouds. Losses like the one on Sunday, a 7-5 setback against Seattle, do not.
The Rangers found themselves in an ideal position midway through the game. They were up two goals and controlling play against a team they’d already beaten this season. A disastrous six-minute stretch to end the second period derailed it all. New York allowed three goals in 5:18 to fall behind, then gave up two more to start the third. A strong push late wasn’t enough to erase the mistakes.
Friday’s win against Pittsburgh offered a reprieve from the cloud, but it wasn’t a permanent fix.
“Control as much of the game as you want, but if you’re going to let up some chances that your goalie has no shot at saving, it’s going to bite you,” Adam Fox said.
Here are three takeaways from the loss, which drops the Rangers to 2-7-0 in their past nine games.
Too many breakdowns
On the surface, New York’s defensive effort doesn’t look too bad. The Rangers gave up only 22 shots, tied for the fewest they’ve allowed all season. They had 69.27 percent of the five-on-five expected goal share, per Natural Stat Trick, and outchanced Seattle 27-11 during those minutes.
“That’s all great and all, but you’ve got to keep pucks out of the net,” said K’Andre Miller, who played more than 23 minutes and had two points. “You can’t give up six goals a night and expect to win in this league.”
But Seattle’s scoring opportunities were loud. Oliver Bjorkstrand scored on a tap-in to open the scoring for the Kraken, and Brandon Tanev got past Ryan Lindgren and finished another backdoor goal. In the third period, Shane Wright got a step on Kaapo Kakko and redirected an Eeli Tolvanen pass for a goal. All three of those goals involved a Kraken player with a dangerous chance alone in front of the net.
“We were in place,” a frustrated Peter Laviolette said after the game. “We needed to do a better job in those situations and in those areas. The difference between two inches and two feet in any sport is a lot. We were there. We just needed to be a little bit tighter.”
The second-period meltdown
Tanev’s goal came with 5:54 left in the second period, and just over a minute later, Tolvanen found open ice in the slot and buried a pass from Bjorkstrand. Then, in the final minute of the period, Bjorkstrand tipped a Brandon Montour pass past Jonathan Quick, giving Seattle its first lead of the day.
“Just some breakdowns, a lot of the same stuff we’ve been talking about,” Fox said. “I thought we controlled a lot of the play, but we talk about those big mistakes and we had a couple of them right in a row there.”
“There wasn’t a momentum change,” Laviolette added. “They had those opportunities and they scored. That was it.”
The Artemi Panarin-Trocheck-Alexis Lafrenière line, which generated plenty offensively, was on the ice for two of those goals.
“There were definitely breakdowns,” said Trocheck, who added the Rangers need to do a better job paying attention to details.
The goalie battle
Philipp Grubauer was far from perfect, but he kept the Kraken alive with the Rangers threatening to take a 4-1 lead midway through the second. Fox put a perfect pass on Panarin’s stick, setting him up with a look at a seemingly vacated net. Grubauer got across his crease just in time to make a glove save on Panarin. Fox pointed out the play as a big moment after the game; Seattle stayed within two goals and had a scoring barrage later in the period.
Quick was in net for the Rangers with newly extended Igor Shesterkin away from the team while his wife is giving birth to their second child. As the Rangers lamented after the loss, they gave up far too many chances in front of their goalie.
“I think we can be a little harder around our net, tying up sticks, boxing guys out and just making Quickie’s life a little bit easier,” Miller said. “We’ve got to be better for him.”
But no goalie will be thrilled after allowing six goals on 21 shots. Any of the goals would have been hard saves. The backdoor tap-ins are hard to pin on him, but perhaps he could’ve made an elite save on one of the other goals. It’s hard to pile blame on Quick considering strong goaltending has carried the Rangers this year, but New York could have used a difficult save Sunday, perhaps on the Tolvanen goal. Seattle got one from Grubauer on Panarin, and that was the difference in the game.
Quick’s save percentage dipped from .936 to .915 on Sunday. He’s now 5-2-0 on the year.
(Photo: Danny Wild / Imagn Images)
