The New York Rangers get off to a disastrous start to their promised playoff chasing season, falling to the Washington Capitals by a score of 5-1. The closer we got to game time, the more I feared this game would be over-hyped and boy was that the case. The Rangers had a national broadcast to showcase their new rough and rowdy identity and despite the physical performance, there were no fights or anything that was kind of expected. Which would've been all well and good if we actually competed with Washington, which we just could not seem to do.
The first got off to a normal opening night start, some spurts of energy in a feeling out kind of process. What would be the biggest problem for the Rangers came up very quick in this game and that's the penalties. The Washington Capitals are one of the worst teams to run into penalty trouble against, it's almost guaranteed they're going to score on the power play and sure enough, Tj Oshie scores the first goal of the Capitals 2021-22 season. Not too long after that, John Carlsson lets a one timer go from high in the slot to almost give the Caps a two goal lead. However, upon review the play was offside, no goal.
We go into the second period down by one and the Rangers have moments but aren't able to generate any effective offense. About halfway through the period, Justin Schultz scores, you guessed it, on the power play. Less than one minute later, in the most Rangers fashion, a rookie gets his first career NHL goal against them on a nice shot from Hendrix Lapierre. This is probably where most Rangers fans switched to the Knicks or just went to bed.
To the third we go, and very soon into it we are once again short handed and the Caps are once again scoring a power play goal, this time by Alex Ovechkin who would pass Marcel Dionne on the all-time goals list. Yay. Halfway through the period, the Rangers get their one lone goal for their first of the season. No it wasn't Patrik Nemeth but Chris Kreider on a tip-in on the power play. The icing on the cake came from Ovie's second of the night, on a breakaway, shorthanded.
Let's quickly break down the main concerns that came from last night and why Rangers fans need to limit the overreactions. It was a game time decision from head coach Gerard Gallant on who to start in net for the Rangers. With back to back games, he felt his two goalies should each get a game to start the season and initially, I understood and stood with the decision. I also understand the frustration from Rangers fans regarding the decision, we just paid Igor Sheshterkin for the foreseeable future, he's young, there's no reason he shouldn't be able to go back to back early in the season. I also understand the concerns with Alexandar Georgiev, he's coming off a rough season, there's reason to believe we may have already seen him at his best, however we have to be optimistic with him, there's no choice.
This isn't a play one goalie for sixty plus games league anymore, a lot of teams have moved toward more of a two goalie system. That's not to say both goalies should see 41 games a season, that's just to say that you need to be able to rely on your number two goalie to play 25-35 games and ideally, you want him to win a decent chunk of them. Georgiev is still young, he still has the ability to turn it around and even if you're ready to move on from him, you have to at least wait for him to have a little hot streak and try to move him for an asset before calling up Kinkaid. Lastly, if you put your frustration aside and actually think about the game last night, it doesn't matter who was in net. If we can't score and are constantly allowing Washington's power play to go to work, we don't have a shot.
Lastly, Jarred Tinordi and the "tough" line up. Another big concern from fans was the Rangers "compromising" a skill based line up to go with more grit and toughness, two words I hope we can stop talking about real soon. While we didn't have fight night like we expected, the one thing the Rangers did lead in was hits, and yes, that doesn't matter if we don't win the game but that does justify their reasoning for going with Tinordi over Lundkvist. Not to mention, Nils is 20 years old and has never played a meaningful hockey game in North America. What is the big deal of waiting for the home opener to play him? Jarred Tinordi is the perfect number seven defenseman that isn't Brendan Smith, he's not going to play many games this season, don't stress over it.
Moving on. The Rangers need to have short term memory going into tonight, forget last night ever happened and focus on winning the home opener. We're right back at it tonight against the Dallas Stars in what will certainly be an excitable game. Henrik Lundqvist is back and will join Steve Valiquette and John Giannone on MSG Networks, hopefully no one trips over a cable during the team announcements and the Rangers play a more complete game at home. Igor Sheshterkin will start in goal and expect the following line up:
Lafreniere - Zibanejad - Kreider
Panarin - Strome - Kakko
Goodrow - Chytil - Blais
Hunt -Rooney - Reaves
Lindgren - Fox
Miller - Trouba
Nemeth - Lundkvist
The Dallas Stars are a team that fell off a bit last season and missed the playoffs despite making it to the cup final the year before. They will be looking to have a major bounce back season, especially as they have a bunch of guys returning from injury. This is a team that runs deep, has a lot of skilled seasoned veterans, some promising younger names and a very solid group of defenders with a familiar face in net. The Rangers are no stranger to playing against Braden Holtby and will want to test him early and often. The Rangers have the advantage in the sense that this will be Dallas' first game of the season. If the they can stay out of the box, get off to a quicker, more offensive start, there's no reason we can't immediately bounce back and put on a good showing to a packed Garden.
Chris Feldman
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