NHL

Punchless Rangers zapped by Lightning

TAMPA, Fla. — This 5-0 defeat Monday night to the Lightning represented an epic fail by the Rangers on almost all accounts.

The Blueshirts were careless with the puck in all three zones; unable to convert on a half-dozen power plays; could not get game-turning saves from Henrik Lundqvist; and simply watched Tampa Bay right wing Martin St. Louis score on a pair of breakaways to celebrate a night on which he was feted for having played in 1,000 NHL games.

“It was a Martin St. Louis lovefest out there and nobody touched a soul,” said coach Alain Vigneault, whose team was credited with 13 hits. “Especially not him.

“It was a big no-hitter.”

The Rangers have been shut out five times in 24 games. They have scored one goal in five others, two in five more. That’s 15 matches with fewer than three goals for the 12-12 Blueshirts, who have scored nine goals in going 3-4 in their last seven games.

“On the power play and at full strength, I’m getting sick of trying to come up with reasons why we can’t find the back of the net,” Brad Richards told The Post following the match in which the Rangers squandered a 1:02 two-man advantage in the second while trailing 3-0. “You’d think with the chances we create we’d eventually get one, but we don’t.”

The Rangers had a 32-14 first-period advantage in attempts, yet trailed 2-0 after the first when Nikita Kucherov took advantage of a couple of Derek Brassard turnovers to score from the left circle at 2:12, just 58 seconds before St. Louis torched Marc Staal down the right side before sweeping across to beat Lundqvist.

It became 3-0 at 3:12 of the second when St. Louis went straight up the gut on a breakaway to capitalize on a Derek Dorsett turnover.

“We made a few mistakes and they made us pay for it because I wasn’t able to come up with the saves,” said Lundqvist, pulled after allowing four goals on 22 shots in two periods. “Marty had a great night. I think he might be one of the best in the league on breakaways and I needed to have better timing.

“There were quick turnovers and I didn’t play the way I needed to against a top guy.”
Vigneault was quick to douse the embers of a potential goaltending controversy in making it clear he did not hold Lundqvist even partially responsible for the lopsided defeat.

“It had nothing to do with him,” the coach said. “I just wanted to try and change the momentum.”

The Rangers have been excellent at defending leads this year, but they are 1-11 when yielding the first goal. That kind of comes with the territory when the average offensive output is 2.0 goals per game.

“You’re not going to win in this league without scoring,” Ryan Callahan said. “We’re trying, but we have to be better, that’s all there is to it.

“We can’t keep saying we’re creating chances. That’s not good enough.”

Vigneault moved Callahan off the Richards-Rick Nash unit onto the line with Brassard and Benoit Pouliot in the third, flipping the captain with Carl Hagelin. The Blueshirts didn’t mount much of an attack against Ben Bishop — 4-0 lifetime against the Blueshirts with a 0.89 goals-against average and .973 save percentage — after failing on that extended second period five-on-three.

“The power play had a couple of opportunities to put us back in the game and they didn’t,” Vigneault said. “You have to be able to make the other team pay when they make mistakes and that 1-11 record [when allowing the first goal] is a telling sign we’re not doing enough.”

The Rangers, who had won the first two of this trip in Dallas and Nashville, continue the trek with matches in Florida Wednesday and in Boston Friday. Vigneault is liable to juggle his combinations; perhaps even make a change in the lineup by which J.T. Miller re-enters after four straight scratches.

“We can’t totally toss this one out,” Callahan said. “We have to learn from it. We can’t have another one like this.”