The Rangers did so many more positive things than negative ones at the Garden on Monday night, and that goes for Henrik Lundqvist as well, but it was the comparatively small number of mistakes that ultimately did them in in a 4-3 shootout defeat to the Blue Jackets.
“We did carry a lot of the play, but their goals were a result of our own breakdowns, which we can’t afford to keep making,” said Rick Nash, who scored twice against his former team in his first multi-goal game of the season. “We need to clean it up in our own zone and we can’t be behind 3-1 after two periods, especially at home, where we need a better performance.”
The Rangers erased that 3-1 deficit within the first 6:55 of the third on a goal from Brian Boyle at 4:53, followed by one on the power play from Nash. At that point, the Blueshirts — who had fired 50 shots on net in Saturday’s 7-1 victory in Toronto — had outshot the Jackets 40-34. They were then outshot 15-3 for the remainder of the contest, getting to overtime only because of Lundqvist’s outstanding play.
Still, the netminder, sharp throughout in facing a number of quality chances in what was a very entertaining match, blamed himself for the loss of a point to Columbus after a shootout in which he was beaten on both shots he faced while Sergei Bobrovsky stopped both Mats Zuccarello and Nash.
“The difference is that I did not stop breakaways and he did,” said Lundqvist, beaten on a second-period breakaway by Cam Atkinson that resulted from an egregious Anton Stralman turnover at the offensive blue line. “I have some work to do.”
The Rangers played the final 44:39 without Chris Kreider, assessed a five-minute boarding major and game misconduct when his shoulder to shoulder hit on Fedor Tyutin sent the Columbus defenseman flying into the wall at 0:21 of the second period.
The NHL Department of Player Safety, which reviewed the play during and immediately after the match, is not expected to conduct a hearing or enact supplementary discipline against Kreider, who came from the side and minimized the impact of the blow by slowing down to a near stop before delivering the check.
Indeed, the Rangers may ask the NHL to rescind the major and game misconduct even though Tyutin played just one brief shift the remainder of the contest.
Absent Kreider, coach Alain Vigneault moved J.T. Miller up onto the unit with Nash and Derek Stepan. Nash double-shifted much of the remainder of the third period on the fourth line with Boyle and Dominic Moore.
“He’s a big part of this team,” Nash said of Kreider. “His speed really backs off the other team. It was an adjustment [without him], but it gave J.T. a chance to step up and have a pretty good night.”
The Rangers dictated the pace of this up-tempo match for the first 45 minutes. They broke out cleanly and came through the neutral zone with little trouble.
But when they did break down, the Blue Jackets capitalized, beating Lundqvist on a Brandon Dubinsky deflection in front at 17:07 of the first following a failed clear; the Atkinson breakaway at 1:01 of the second on a four-on-four; and a James Wisniewski back door wrist shot to convert a Dubinsky odd-man feed with the Blueshirts trapped at 16:47 of the second.
“I tried a half-shot to Richie [Brad Richards] but it hit off [Atkinson’s] skate and he was too fast for me,” Stralman said. “It was obviously a bad mistake that changed the momentum.”
If momentum shifted, the Rangers didn’t do quite a good enough job of swinging it back in their favor. It didn’t help at all the Blueshirts failed on a pair of second-period power plays when trailing 2-1.
“When we lose momentum we have to do a better job of grabbing it back quickly,” Ryan Callahan said. “We weren’t able to do that in the second period.”
But they did rally. They did get a strong performance from Lundqvist, who nevertheless allowed at least three goals for the 10th time in the last 11 games. They pushed the pace. They generated chances.
“Not good enough,” Callahan said. “There are things we need to fix.”