Rangers drop 2nd straight, blanked by Hurricanes 4-0

A highly successful month of January ended with a resounding thud for the New York Rangers on Tuesday at Madison Square Garden. In their final game before flipping the calendar to February, the Rangers lost their second straight, shut out 4-0 by the Carolina Hurricanes.
The loss dropped the Rangers to 8-3-3 in January and followed a 5-4 defeat at the hands of the Colorado Avalanche on Sunday at MSG, when the visitors scored the winner with 15 seconds to play in regulation.
This result was not nearly as suspenseful. The Hurricanes (31-16-4) scored less than a minute into the game and never relinquished the lead. They scored three goals in a span of 3:01 bridging the second and third periods to put the Rangers away.
It’s the third time in three tries the Hurricanes defeated the Rangers this season, previously winning 4-3 on Thanksgiving Eve in Raleigh and 3-1 at MSG on Dec. 22.
With three teams ahead of them in the Eastern Conference standings also losing Tuesday, it ‘s a missed opportunity for the Rangers (24-22-4) to make up ground in the playoff race, though they didn’t lose ground either.
“You can look at it all different angles however you want,” Rangers center Mika Zibanejad said. “I think we’ve been playing some good hockey here in January. Think about this one, feel whatever you feel after a game like this, and then we move on”
Frederik Andersen, who missed nearly three months following October knee surgery, picked up his 28th career shutout and won his third straight start since coming off injured reserve. He made 22 saves, including one on a Zibanejad break late in regulation to preserve the shutout.
Andrei Svechnikov led the Hurricanes with two goals and an assist. Newly-acquired forwards Mikko Rantanen and Taylor Hall each recorded their first points with Carolina with one assist each. Sebastian Aho and Seth Jarvis scored the other Carolina goals.
Igor Shesterkin finished with 22 saves. He allowed nine goals in losing the final two games in January after a 6-0-1 run coming off an upper-body injury to begin January.
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Carolina Hurricanes 4 – New York Rangers 0

It didn’t take long for the Hurricanes to open the scoring Tuesday. Svechnikov got the visitors on the board just 56 seconds into the game, wiring a snap shot high over Shesterkin’s glove. Hall made the slick feed to the streaking Svechnikov flying down the middle to make it 1-0, after an Artemi Panarin turnover at center ice.
The Rangers settled down quickly, though, and at one point held a 9-3 shots advantage. That included two point-blank chances by Vincent Trocheck and Alexis Lafreniere, each denied by Andersen in rapid succession at 7:13. Five minutes later, Andersen made a sharp stop on Adam Edstrom’s deflection of a Matt Rempe centering feed.
Carolina got its chances later in the period. Rantanen unleashed a nasty snap shot crossing the blue line on the power play that was gloved by Shesterkin at the 16-miunte mark. Then at 18:40, Jaccob Slavin had his open one-timer from left wing denied by Shesterkin’s shoulder.
The first period, which also featured a fight between New York’s Sam Carrick and Carolina’s Riley Stillman at 6:02, ended with the Hurricanes up 1-0 on the scoreboard and with a 10-6 edge in 5v5 scoring chances — though the Rangers were up 10-8 in shots on goal.
Things opened up in an entertaining second period, which featured numerous Grade-A chances, great saves by each goalie and one massive Rangers mistake which put them in a 2-0 hole.
At 6:40, Shesterkin made an electric save moving to his right to rob Eric Robinson after a slick tic-tac-toe passing sequence by Carolina. Then at 7:55, Shesterkin stoned Rantanen off a 2-on-0 rush with a timely pad save.
Andersen was just as good at the other end, and got a little help from his friends along the way to hold the Rangers off the scoreboard. The 35-year-old glided from left to right in his crease to deny Panarin’s whizzing backhand shot. He also made a huge save to deny Chris Kreider on a 2-on-1 short-handed rush late in the period.
There were two instances where Andersen was caught out of position, but his teammates made clutch defensive plays to bail him out. The first was when a back-checking Svechnikov poked the puck away from Carrick, who was looking at a wide-open net from the low slot after a scramble in front. Then Slavin made a huge block on Reilly Smith after the Rangers forward danced around one Hurricanes player with a gorgeous toe-drag.
The defining sequence of the second period came in its final minute. With Carolina on the power play, Trocheck stole the puck right off Shayne Gostisbehere’s stick in the Rangers zone and scooted away on a short-handed breakaway. Closing in on Andersen, Trocheck dropped a pass behind him into the slot, looking for K’Andre Miller but it was intercepted.
Not only was it a wasted chance to tie the game, the Hurricanes came back the other way and scored a backbreaking goal at 19:29. Svechnikov finished a neat passing play with a tap-in off Rantanen’s pass, a stunning turn of events.
“Gostisbehere was chasing me down on my forehand, I couldn’t get the puck to my forehand, I was too tight to Andersen to get it around him,” Trocheck explained. “Tough angle for me and he was right on top of it. Could’ve shot it and buried it into his chest or try to make the play to [Miller] and unluckily it hit the skate.”
If the air wasn’t already sucked out of the building, it soon was early in the third period. Aho wired his 17th goal past Shesterkin after a defensive-zone turnover by Kreider at 1:04. Then Jarvis was left all alone in the low slot, and he buried Jordan Martinook’s pass from behind the goal line to make it 4-0 at 2:30.
Having lost consecutive games for the first time since closing out December with four straight defeats, the Rangers have three days to think on this one before they visit the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon and then turn right around to host the Vegas Golden Knights at The Garden on Sunday.
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