Special teams hasn’t been a strength of the Rangers this season, but now it has become a detriment.
With their former power-play specialist Chris Kreider at the other end of the ice, the Blueshirts gave up goals on both the penalty kill and with the man advantage in an empty-net-abetted 4-1 loss to the Ducks on Monday night at Madison Square Garden.
Head coach Mike Sullivan continues to trot out the five-forward alignment on the power play to no avail.
The Rangers may have been missing a key piece in Mika Zibanejad, who was benched for missing a team meeting this morning, but they went 0-for-4 on the power play in the loss and gave up the first goal of the evening after failing to capitalize on a five-on-three advantage.
Anaheim’s game-winner came off a snipe from Cutter Gauthier at the 5:51 mark of the third period, the very moment Anaheim’s power play expired.
Since losing Adam Fox to a shoulder injury, the Rangers have converted on just two of their 17 power-play opportunities to go along with two short-handed goals against. Coming into Monday’s contest, they were ranked 14th in the NHL with a 20.3 power-play percentage.
Sullivan recently rearranged the power play to have a defensively conscious point man in Zibanejad, but his absence made the group look even more dysfunctional than it already was.
Not even Matt Rempe’s return to the lineup — and his net-front spot on the second power-play unit — helped.
The special teams battle was at the crux of this matchup.
When Mikael Granlund took a seat in the box for hooking and the Ducks were assessed a bench minor for too many men on the ice in the second period, the Rangers had a prime five-on-three opportunity for 22 seconds.
Instead of the Rangers using it to their advantage, however, they handed over the lead.
Ex-Rangers captain Jacob Trouba, in his return to MSG, sprang Ryan Poehling for a short-handed breakaway with a pass off the boards. Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin made the initial save, but Jackson LaCombe whacked at the puck before Will Cuylle’s skate pushed it over the goal line.
The home team managed to answer at the end of the middle frame.
Matthew Robertson’s slap shot from the top of the zone took a fortunate bounce over Ducks goalie Lukas Dostal. While Vincent Trocheck attempted to bat the puck in — which the refs initially believed he did and waved it off for high sticking — it actually went in off Dostal’s stick and Robertson was ultimately credited with the game-tying goal.
[Notigroup Newsroom in collaboration with other media outlets, with information from the following sources]
