Rangers Can’t Weather The Storm
Alain Vigneault was fuming as last night the Rangers effort “pissed away two points”! Those were his words last night as per the NYDN and it didn’t stop there.
“Not that I don’t want to give credit to Carolina, because they played a good game,” Vigneault said, beginning one of his harshest messages to date, “but we pissed away two points because we didn’t work, and I haven’t said that very often of this group this year. Right from the start, our work ethic wasn’t what it needs to be in this league to have any chance. When we do that, we’re just a below average team, and that’s what we showed tonight.”
First Period
In the first period the Rangers started off on the wrong foot by taking a penalty only sixteen seconds in. Stralman would be the guilty party with hook on Jordan Staal. Carolina has the 29th worst powerplay in the league and as expected to many, they did not convert. Former Ranger Manny Malhotra tripped up Martin St. Louis minutes later to give the Rangers their first powerplay opportunity, but also did not have any decent opportunities to score. Ryan McDonagh took a 4 minute penalty with an interference call on hitting Jiri Tlusty by the blue line and then took a questionable rough penalty in a scrum that also negated the powerplay in half with a roughing call on Brent Bellemore. The Rangers had a few chances to score, but it seem as if they did one too many passes when they had opportunities to shoot in a high percentage area. St. Louis had a breakaway by making two defenders collide into each other, but Cam Ward saved the forehand-backhand move. New York only had five shots on goal while Carolina had thirteen
Second Period
Not one minute into the second period, Carolina notched a goal which was scored by Jiri Tlusty in front of the net. Marc Staal was chasing up high and the puck was turned over to Jordan Staal which lead to a perfect setup with Tlusty with Stralman left all alone to stop the play. Four minutes later though, Zuccarello brought in a loose puck deep into the offensive zone, only to find Kevin Klein on a perfect pass to snipe one past Cam Ward to tie the game at one apiece. Late in the period, the Rangers had another defensive breakdown. With Marc Staal no where to be found, the Canes rush the puck up the ice to leave Stralman alone with Jordan Staal and Jiri Tlusty again with a 2-on-1 and Jordan finishes the play with a goal to make it a 2-1 game.
Third Period
There weren’t many chances for the Rangers this game as continued to play sloppy through out the entire game. Jeff Skinner received the puck deep in the offensive zone to just easily dangle past the Rangers while they puck watched. Skinner put one on Lundqvist and Elias Lindholm grabbed the rebound for an easy goal while their was very little effort on the Rangers end to prevent the goal. New York later got a powerplay to get a chance to cut the lead in half, but they did not convert and the period ended leaving the final score at 3-1 Carolina.
[su_youtube url=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJ7NEPvh52c”]Game Seven Highlights – [/su_youtube]
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