Traverse City: Rangers 3 vs. Stars 4 (OT) Recap
The New York Rangers prospects fell to the Dallas Stars prospects last night by a final score of 4-3. The Stars ended up out shooting the Rangers 30-22 not good for the Rangers as they had 8 power plays in the game whereas the Stars only had 3.Â
Dallas struck first  on a goal from Matej Stransky. A little under two minutes later Ryan Haggerty got in on the goaltender and put one by him to tie the game. The goal was unassisted. The Rangers would keep the offense coming as half way through the first Sam Noreau gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead with the assists going to Daniel Walcott and Paxton Leroux. Near the end of the second period the Rangers expanded their lead to 3-1 on a power play goal from Richard Nejezchelb, the assist went to Mat Bodie. From there Dallas took over the game, in particular Stars prospect Brett Ritchie. The Stars scored two in the third and had Ritchie knot the overtime winner for a comeback victory over the Rangers. Ritchie finished the night with 2 goals an assist and a +3 rating.
NOTES:
Brandon Halverson was said to be getting a bit puck happy. He was leaving his net to play the puck (which is a big part of his game) but was having some issues making the right plays. Understandable since he has never played with any of the defenders.
Kevin Hayes was a -2 with two shots on goal and wasn’t at his best.
Anthony DuClair looked very good. He had 2 shots but was -1
Paxton Leroux recorded a fighting major and had 7 PIMs in total.
Ryan Haggerty described the game as being sloppy for the Rangers, this was true as in the limited videos we can see some of the mis-communications on defense. We knew from the start that the Rangers defense was their weakness and it showed. They simply don’t have the kind of defenders who can slow a game down and make some swift passes. The gap between forwards and defense in terms of getting a certain flow to the game is what creates that sloppy atmosphere. When you have defenders who play the safe up the boards style and forwards who are looking to burst through the neutral zone; then you will have a game that looks a bit all over the place. I wouldn’t worry too much about this, it is the first game that most of these guys are playing together.
Below are some videos of blown coverage’s for the Rangers
[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R8E3j8pgWiA?list=UU0FVn0R84ahFbb3zcnDeiyQ]
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