If one were to guess a night when the Rangers couldn’t convert, this wouldn’t have been it.
With All-Star winger Rick Nash returning to the lineup on Tuesday night at the Garden after missing six weeks because of a concussion, the Rangers produced more than enough chances. Yet they lost to the Bruins, 2-1, leaving nothing but the sour taste of disappointment.
“Right now, we’re doing all the things that you’re supposed to do to win,” said coach Alain Vigneault, whose team outshot the Bruins, 44-22, notching their second-highest shot total of the season. “We haven’t scored a five-on-five goal in the three games, but we’re doing everything we’re supposed to do to get them. So we have to believe in it.”
Of those 44 shots, five were from the stick of Nash, along with another three that missed and three that were blocked — helping to add up to the Rangers (10-11-0) out-attempting the Bruins (14-6-1) by a whopping total of 85-53. Nash played on the top line with Brad Richards and Ryan Callahan, and at times showed sparks of the dominant force he has been known to be.
“It’s disappointing we couldn’t finish, but the chances were there,” said Nash, who after missing the past 17 games ended up playing 17:55, with 2:27 of that on the power play. “I felt OK. Felt I was a bit slow in making plays. Had a couple chances where I could have passed it, but just had my head down. But that comes with the timing and the speed.”
Nash had a beauty of an opportunity with about six minutes gone by in the third and the Rangers trailing, 2-1. He executed a nice weave play with Richards, fired a shot from the right circle that was stopped by Tuukka Rask, and then Richards swatted at the puck in mid-air, hitting the side of the net.
“You go through this every year,” Callahan said “There are stretches where it seems like everything is going in, [then] there are stretches where you can’t put it in. I think the biggest thing is to make sure you are playing well, make sure you are getting those opportunities.”
The Blueshirts peppered Rask from all angles, yet he kept his tired team, playing the second leg of a road back-to-back and mostly with five defensemen after Dennis Seidenberg left to injury after one first-period shift, to withstand long stretches pinned in its own zone. It was only Derick Brassard’s second-period power play shot — the one that snuck through the legs of Boston defenseman Johnny Boychuk — that got past Rask. It was just a minute earlier in that man-advantage when Daniel Paille beat Callahan to a loose puck and scored shorthanded, giving the Bruins a 2-0 lead after Shawn Thornton opened the scoring 6:16 into the second.
“The power play,” Nash said, “we can’t afford to give up goals on our power play. We’ve got to be better at finishing.”
Another member of the Rangers who would agree with him would be Chris Kreider, the young wrecking ball of a forward who hardly could pick his head up after the game, after having four shots on net all denied, including a first-period penalty shot Rask shoved aside with his right pad.
“He’s a great goaltender, but I’m confident in my ability to shoot a hockey puck,” Kreider said. “When I hit my spot, it tends to go in.”
So the Rangers have turned around their 3-7 start, and can see perceptible strides going into an upcoming five-game road trip, starting Thursday in Dallas. But there is a reason the Bruins are near the top of the East, a place where the Rangers would like to be before it’s too late.
“They’re a very good team, they’re a very good measuring stick,” Kreider said. “But that being said, we need to finish.”