Marian Gaborik, who may have the most gifted hands in the NHL, scored his league-leading 23rd goal in last night’s third period, but despite receiving a salary of $7.5 million, he cannot buy one in the shootout.
And yet, for the third time in three shootouts this season, there was Gaborik leading off for the Blueshirts. And there was Gaborik being denied for the third time this year and for the 15th time in 16 career attempts, last night by Atlanta’s Johan Hedberg, in what became a 3-2 defeat at the Garden.
“I cannot explain it; I don’t know what to say about it,” Gaborik, beaten on a right pad save of his wrist shot, told The Post following his team’s sixth defeat (1-4-2) in the past seven games. “I saw an opening, but if I had gotten the puck four inches higher, it would have gone in.
“It’s a problem. I have to figure it out. It means points.”
Gaborik, who snapped a left wing power-play drive past Hedberg at 4:05 of the third to boost the team into a 2-2 tie just 59 seconds after the Rangers yielded their second shorthanded goal in two games, is hardly the only marquee goal-scorer to struggle in the skills competition.
Jarome Iginla is a career 7-for-25. Jaromir Jagr, at 5-for-22, became so frustrated with his inability to score that he famously asked out of a number of shootouts while captain of the Rangers, drawing the stares of perplexed teammates.
But despite holding the worst percentage (6.25) of any shooter to have taken at least 10 shots, Gaborik said he neither has spoken with head coach John Tortorella about sitting out the competition, nor intends to do so.
“No, I’m not telling the coach I don’t want to shoot,” Gaborik said. “I just have to score.”
The Rangers had won their first two shootouts with the decisive goal in each registered by P.A. Parenteau, who was dispatched to AHL Hartford on Sunday. Interestingly, Tortorella chose to scratch Erik Christensen, who has a career 17-for-31 mark in shootouts.
Past performance is no guarantee of success, of course, because Ales Kotalik, who entered last night a career 21-for-39, had the puck roll over his stick as the Rangers’ second shooter before he could even test Hedberg.
When Slava Kozlov scored after Ilya Kovalchuk had beaten Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist, the Thrashers had their victory. And the Rangers again were left with trying to sift through the positives despite being limited to two goals or fewer for the 16th time in the past 20 games.
And there were positives. The Blueshirts blasted a season-high 48 shots on net. They scored twice on the power play for the second straight game, with Ryan Callahan getting his second in two games off a brilliant 110-foot home-run pass from Michael Del Zotto.
They killed a 5-on-3 lasting 1:26 in the final six minutes of regulation. Brandon Dubinsky returned after missing 13 games because of a broken hand and was an important piece of the puzzle. They won puck battles.
And yet they failed to win again.
“I know there were good things, but it’s getting old,” Lundqvist said. “But if we take care of business we are going to be fine.
“There is a lot of hockey left and there’s going to be a big battle for the bottom spots in the playoffs. We have to keep battling.”