CALGARY, Alberta — The Rangers were beaten 3-1 here last night by the Flames despite their gamest effort of the season, but that’s not even a third of it as far as their losses are concerned.
For first the Blueshirts lost Chris Drury to a concussion 49 seconds into the match on a blindside hit to the head from Curtis Glencross on a play that should have drawn a five-minute major for interference but was not penalized, and later lost Brandon Dubinsky four minutes into the second to a potentially serious right forearm or wrist injury he sustained blocking a shot.
The captain, who previously had sustained two recorded concussions in the NHL, the second on a Chris Neil blindside hit to the head on Feb. 22, 2007 that sidelined the then-Sabre for 13 days, was injured last night while skating up the defensive zone left wing looking back over his right shoulder for a Wade Redden outlet that was never delivered.
“I saw it and I thought it was a dirty hit,” Marc Staal told The Post. “Reds went cross-ice the other way, Dru wasn’t looking, and their guy hit him with an elbow right in the chin.
“It was brutal; just brutal; I don’t know what the refs were looking at. It should have been a major.”
Referees have been instructed to call five-minute majors on interference infractions that cause injury. The inept pair of Dan O’Halloran and Kevin Pollock that worked last night’s game apparently cannot read or cannot see. Perhaps both.
“It’s a missed call and he’s concussed,” said head coach John Tortorella, who indicated that he expected each of his top two centers, Drury and Dubinsky, to be out for some time. “It should have been a five-minute major.
“What the league does [regarding a review] is not up to me to discuss.”
The Blueshirts, who dominated the Flames most of the night while outshooting Calgary 33-22 with a makeshift lineup rotation in an extremely impressive display of resolve, did not retaliate after the hit that felled Drury.
“You can’t; you can’t,” Sean Avery, who was on the ice after opening on a line with Drury and Ryan Callahan, told The Post. “If the game had become lopsided, there’s no question something would have been done [to Glencross].
“It [bleeps]; it [bleeps] that’s what happens with the instigator rule. It protects guys who are cowards.”
The Rangers, who will fly home today following this tour of western Canada on which they went 1-2, never backed down and rarely backed up throughout this painful and undeserved defeat. They carried the play and gave at least as good as they got in the physical department against the bigger, brawnier Flames.
“I think we deserved better,” said Marian Gaborik, who played 24:49. “We definitely matched their physicality and were all over them down low.
“I thought we played very well, especially after losing our captain and our top two centers. We should be proud of our game.”
The difference was in nets, where Miikka Kiprusoff, who made multiple big stops from in front, outplayed Steve Valiquette, who yielded the winner on a short side Jarome Iginla right wing drive off a three-on-two late in the second that broke a 1-1 deadlock.
“Valiquette? He was OK,” said Tortorella.
If only the same could be said for Drury and Dubinsky.