Red Wings add to New York Rangers frustrations in latest loss
The New York Rangers looked frustrated on Thursday night falling 4-1 to the Red Wings in Detroit. They’ve now lost three in a row (0-2-1) and it’s their first time since late November losing back-to-back in regulation.
From November 23 to the 28th, New York dropped three straight (@ Anaheim, Edmonton, New Jersey) before stopping the bleeding with a win over the Senators in Ottawa.
“Not good enough and we didn’t play hard enough for 60 minutes,” Gerard Gallant lamented. “What bothered me about it is some of those goals [Detroit] scored on the rush, we had bad reads and we left them wide open. It was unnecessary for me.”
New York Rangers fall to Red Wings
The Blueshirts were done in at the hands of a key contributor to last season’s run to the Eastern Conference Final. Andrew Copp popped home a goal and added two helpers to lead Detroit to the their seventh win in the last eight games. The victory also moved the Red Wings into the final playoff spot in the East.
Copp opened the scoring with the only goal of the first period burying a backhand behind Jaroslav Halak, who was called upon to stop way too many high-danger chances in this one.
The Rangers had a brief stretch in the second period where they looked like they could take over the game. Vincent Trocheck tied it at the 6:06 mark on an unassisted beauty.
That lasted all of two minutes and twelve seconds as Filip Zadina sniped one by Halak after a turnover at the blue line. The Red Wings supplied the nail to the Rangers coffin with under two minutes to play in the middle frame, when Michael Rasmussen tapped in net mouth feed for a 3-1 lead off a blown coverage.
“We didn’t do the things we were supposed,” Mika Zibanejad explained. “We gave away too many chances and too many odd man rushes. Bad reads and bad plays.”
Detroit netted another goal in the opening five minutes of the third period to add to the Rangers misery. New York simply looked off and angry most of the game, which included both Adam Fox and Alexis Lafreniere dropping the gloves.
In the end, Halak was solid with 19 saves despite giving up four goals. However, the Rangers keep running into goalies who play them like it’s Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Final. This time it was Ville Husso stopping 30 of 31 shots, including a ridiculous save off Fox that would’ve changed the complexion of the contest.
“Not our best game for sure,” captain Jacob Trouba admitted. “We’ve got a couple now that we’ve lost and we’ve got to get back on track. We’ll to do that in a couple of nights (Saturday vs Capitals).”
The Rangers now find themselves six points behind the New Jersey Devils for second place in the Metro Division. They’ll travel to Washington to take on the Capitals in a key divisional matchup.
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