Rangers blow late lead, furious with officials after 3-2 OT loss to Vegas
To say that the New York Rangers believe they deserved a better fate than than what turned out to be a 3-2 overtime loss to the Vegas Golden Knights on Sunday at Madison Square Garden is a massive understatement.
But in the end, what mattered most was Tomas Hertl’s game-tying goal in the final minute of regulation and Jack Eichel’s phenomenal game-winner in the dying seconds of overtime that handed the Rangers their second OT defeat this weekend. The Rangers lost 3-2 to the Colorado Avalanche on Saturday, after Artemi Panarin tied the game in the final minute of the third period.
What angered the Rangers (15-12-4) most on Sunday was a curious call by referee Chris Lee at 18:02 of the third period. Lee sent New York’s Will Borgen and Vegas center Brett Howden off for coincidental roughing minors for what appeared to be an innocuous battle behind the play.
“There was nothing going on,” frustrated Rangers coach Mike Sullivan said postgame.
That opened up the ice for the Golden Knights. So, when they pulled goalie Carter Hart for the extra attacker, they had a 5-on-4 advantage, as opposed to a 6-on-5.
“Well I think the coincidental minors had a huge implication, right? There’s a big difference between a 6-on-5 and a 5-on-4 and trying to defend it. It had a huge implication,” Sullivan explained.
Sullivan was livid behind the bench when the calls were made, and even more so when Hertl cashed in, burying a rebound with 51.3 seconds to play to tie the score.
The game-winning goal came off a set play, after Vegas won a defensive zone face-off, and defenseman Shea Theodore banked a long pass off the boards to a streaking Eichel, who flew past Rangers defenseman Matthew Robertson. Eichel caught up to the puck, broke in on goalie Jonathan Quick and,beat him with a gorgeous finish, eight seconds before the buzzer would’ve sounded.
Making his first start since Nov. 22 after sustaining a lower-body injury, Quick finished with 26 saves. Mika Zibanejad and Alexis Lafreniere each scored a goal and had an assist for the Rangers, who have points in their past four games (2-0-2), and seven of eight (5-1-2).
Hart made 21 saves for the Golden Knights, who won their fourth straight game. Eichel and Howden each had a goal and an assist.
It didn’t take long for the Rangers to fall behind in this one — 36 seconds to be exact. A failed clearing attempt by Vladislav Gavrikov quickly turned into an odd-man chance down low for Vegas. And Howden, the former Rangers center, buried a slick feed from Mitchell Marner for his fifth goal of the season, and second in the past 14 games, to make it 1-0 Vegas.
From that shift on, the Golden Knights were the superior team in almost every way the in the first period. But the one thing they couldn’t do was add to their lead. Brandon Saad missed the net on a 3-on-2 rush; Quick snuffed a Hertl deflection after the Vegas forward got behind New York’s defense; and Howden and defenseman Kaedan Korczak each rang shots off the post.
After spending most of the first period defending, and managing only three shots on goal and 10 attempted shots, the Rangers came alive and tilted the ice in their favor in period No. 2. New York out-shot Vegas 16-6, had an expected goals share of 78.57 percent in all situations, per Natural Stat Trick, and scored the only two goals in the middle stanza to carry a 2-1 lead into the final period.
Planted near the blue paint, Zibanejad swatted a rebound past Hart to tie the game at 9:08. His team-leading 11th goal of the season came seconds after Zibanejad just missed on a nearly-identical opportunity, when Hart managed to get a sliver of his pad on the shot attempt.
Lafreniere assisted on that Zibanejad goal, and then had the favor returned at 13:01, when the Rangers took a 2-1 lead. Zibanejad feathered a pretty cross-ice pass to Lafreniere, who wired a shot under the crossbar from the right-wing circle for his seventh goal this season.
Hart made a sensational diving save to rob J.T. Miller’s rebound try at 13:42, and later denied Will Cuylle’s spinning short-handed chance off a rush in the final seconds of the period to keep the score 2-1. A bit earlier, the Rangers caught a break at 15:15, when Korczak kissed iron for the second time in the game.
Conor Sheary had an opportunity to push New York’s lead to 3-1 at 7:38 of the third period, but Hart denied his breakaway with a sharp pad save. Quick answered back at 12:25, making his own big pad stop to deny Ivan Barbashev on a clean breakaway.
Vegas took it to New York in the third period, with a 14-3 shots advantage. So, perhaps the Golden Knights would’ve found a way to tie and win this game anyway. But you can’t convince the Rangers that the official’s call late in the third period didn’t change how this final result played out.
“Give Vegas credit, they played hard in the third and I thought our guys did as well,” Sullivan said. “I thought we were defending the lead hard. For the most part, we were doing our best to defend the scoring area and the good area of the ice. We felt on the bench that we were in control the way we needed to be. It’s disappointing.”
Key takeaways after Rangers lose 3-2 in overtime to Golden Knights
Over and out
This was a pretty unique overtime period. The teams played 4-on-4 for over four minutes after Borgen and Howden finished serving their respective penalties and rejoined play two seconds into OT. Rules stipulate that in this type of circumstance, teams don’t go back to 3-on-3 play until the first whistle. And there wasn’t a single whistle in the cautiously-played overtime period until Hart froze the puck after he made a really good save, hugging the post to squeeze a short-side snipe by Zibanejad, with 16.9 seconds remaining in the 5-minute period.
So that opened up the ice again for the Golden Knights, who won the ensuing face-off (Howden), and Eichel beat everyone up ice for his 12th goal of the season.
There was a chance for a whistle earlier in OT, but neither referee used it when Robertson was tripped at center ice. Needless to say, that non-call made the Rangers even more furious.
“Like, really? Zero power plays (for the Rangers in the game) and you don’t call that? I don’t know,” Zibanejad said with disgust postgame. “Again, we can’t control it. It stings now. We could probably look at other things that we could’ve done better not to get to that point, but thought that one was pretty obvious.”
Quick return
Though he allowed a goal on the second shot faced, Quick looked sharp and battled hard Sunday. He missed seven games with that lower-body injury, but fell right back into form, and was especially sharp in the third period when the Golden Knights made a serious push.
The first goal he allowed was an odd-man chance down low. The tying goal late came off a scramble after he made the initial save. And the one in OT was a breakaway by one of the top offensive players in the NHL. Hard to fault Quick on any of them.
Quick’s started seven games this season and hasn’t allowed more than three goals yet. And as good as Igor Shesterkin was starting all seven games in his absence, it’s really good that Quick is back, giving the Rangers that terrific 1-2 punch between the pipes.
Tough numbers
The Rangers were so close to flipping the script on some ugly trends, but the numbers only got worse after this one. They remain winless in the second of back-to-back games this season (0-4-1), and their record when allowing the first goal dipped to 2-10-4. They’re also 2-6-3 when trailing after the first period.
And this was the first loss this season for the Rangers, after taking a lead into the third period (9-0-1). New York also dropped to 4-4 in overtime.
Mika’s got Hart’s number
Zibanejad continued his dominating ways against Hart. He now has 13 goals in 15 career games against Hart, all but one of those contests when the goalie played for the Philadelphia Flyers. Hart did get the last laugh in this one, however. He only had to make one save in overtime, but it was a difficult one on a quick release off the stick off Zibanejad on the shift before Eichel scored the game-winner.
New York’s 32-year-old forward did extend his point-scoring streak to seven games overall (four goals, five assists) with two more points Sunday. His 24 points (11 goals, 13 assists) in 31 games is third most on the Rangers this season.
