Wojtek Wolski turned in arguably his best game as a Ranger yesterday, but it wasn’t enough to lift the Blueshirts to a victory.
Wolski played aggressively during 21:22 of ice time and scored the Rangers’ first goal in a 4-2 loss to the conference-leading Flyers in front of 18,200 fans at Madison Square Garden.
The 24-year-old left winger, acquired on Jan. 10 in a trade that sent Michal Rozsival to Phoenix, fired a team-high six shots on goal as he tried to jump-start a stagnant Rangers offense.
“I was physical,” Wolski said. “I was getting to pucks. I just felt like I was involved, had a lot of opportunities and created a lot of opportunities.”
Wolski gave the Rangers (31-26-4) a 1-0 lead 12:43 into the game with his 10th goal of the season, his fourth in 18 games with the Rangers.
“That whole shift we were working it down low, and the puck came out front after a [Flyers] defenseman banged it off the boards behind the net,” Wolski said. “It came out front, and I was just there ready to shoot the puck.”
Wolski’s physical play also cost him, though. He was penalized for boarding at the 12:29 mark of the second period, and the Flyers (39-15-5) capitalized with a power-play goal that gave them a 2-1 lead.
Wolski, a 2004 first-round draft pick, is a plus-6 with the Rangers and said he is getting comfortable with John Tortorella’s system. But that didn’t erase the disappointment of the loss.
“It’s frustrating,” Wolski said. “We’ve got to make sure that we get the results. It’s great to play a good game and to compete and really do a good job as a team, but we’ve got to make sure that we get the results, get those two points and move up in the standings.”