BOSTON — There were elements beyond sharpness absent from Rangers’ game in last night’s 3-1 opening defeat to the Bruins.
These missing ingredients were discipline and the elementary Black-and-Blueshirt mentality that has come to define the team the last two seasons and lacking in those categories should not particularly have been a function of the short run-up to the delayed start of the year.
“We were pretty loose in a number of ways, we were hesitating, and that didn’t allow us to be as aggressive as we usually are and have to be,” said Marc Staal, who had noted earlier the day it would be paramount for the Rangers to come out of the chute as a hard team to play against.
“Boston was better than us early on, and especially at their physical game. We have to figure it out as quickly as we can.”
The statistic that best reflects the out-of-the ordinary for the Rangers: one blocked shot in the first period, two in the third and merely 10 overall.
“They’re a tough team and they came out in their own building with good energy,” said Brad Richards, who scored the Rangers’ lone goal. “We didn’t quite match that.”
The Rangers may not have been able to either match Boston’s energy or establish their own game because of a series of foolish penalties that they started on the first shift that left the club shorthanded seven times for 11:40.
Carl Hagelin, who struggled big time on the left side of the line with Richards and Rick Nash, took a bad boarding penalty 19 seconds into the season.
Brian Boyle, who did not play well, not only was cited for goaltender interference while on a power play but earned an additional two minutes for protesting the call with too much vigor.
“Haggy took a stupid penalty and then got another [later in the game],” coach John Tortorella said. “Brian took a yapping penalty when he should have shut his [darn] mouth.”
Richards and Nash had their moments — No. 61 turned his back on a defender while bringing the puck to the net to begin the sequence on which Richards scored — but the Rangers just weren’t very sharp in any phase of the game.
“Let’s move by [the lockout and short camp] right now,” Tortorella said. “Collectively as a group, I don’t think anyone played that well.”
Despite their inability to put their stamp on the game, the Rangers were within 2-1 early in the third when they earned a 5-on-3 power play for up to 1:30. The Blueshirts manufactured nothing with the two-man advantage before a penalty to Nash negated the final 20 seconds of the 5-on-4.
“That was obviously the big point in the game,” Richards said. “It kind of goes without saying.”
Henrik Lundqvist, who had allowed two goals or fewer in 12 of his previous 13 starts at TD Bank Garden, was impressive. He made an all-time lunging glove save to deny David Krejci at the right doorstep at 7:07 of the third to keep the margin at one goal, but Johnny Boychuk scored from the right boards just 1:06 later.
“It was a fun save, but when you make on like that you want it to be the difference,” Lundqvist said. “It wasn’t.”
The Rangers that they will be different tonight when the Penguins come to the Garden. There could be changes in the line combinations.
“Win or lose, everybody realized there’d be work to do,” Richards said. “It’s not the end of the world, but we have to learn some things pretty quickly.”