*Sigh*
Despite an excellent second period comeback, the Rangers drop game three to the Pittsburgh Penguins by a score of 7-4. While again, there were some positives to take away from last night's outing the Rangers did not play a complete game, getting off to a shaky start and coming up short when it mattered most. The Penguins wasted no time getting the upper hand in this one. Their fans were into it from the jump, the team was playing hard and just two minutes into it the Penguins were up 1-0 on yet another questionable goal, the patience of Rangers fans already being tested.
First and foremost about this goal; What is Patrik Nemeth doing out there? It's hard to believe that goal happens if Nemeth made better decisions on that play and quite frankly, you have to think this game was strike three for him. If Lindgren is still unavailable come game four, Gerard Gallant HAS to give Zac Jones a shot. I am all for experience and veteran presences in these situations but come on, this just isn't working with him. Between the penalties, the questionable decisions in the defensive zone and now this? Get him out of there. Not to mention, experience and all that is a key factor but at the end of the day, the kid line has been the only consistent thing for us in these playoffs. Maybe youth is the way to go? Anyway, back to the goal.
Patrik Nemeth ran out of room and ended up not only knocking the net off its moorings but completely prevented Igor Shesterkin from being able to make the save. Upon review of the play, it was determined a good goal because the puck would have crossed the line regardless of whether the net was in position or not? Who makes these rules for the National Hockey League? Nevertheless, this rule would come back to bite Pittsburgh in the behind later in the second period. Playoff hockey, you can't be hung up on questionable goals or bad goals, you have to come back from it and that's what the Rangers did, initially.
The kid line strikes back as Kaapo Kakko shows Penguins fans what a good goal looks like by letting a shot go right through Louis Dominque, assists going to Lafreniere and Chytil giving each of them their first career playoff goal and assist respectively. Unfortunately for the Rangers, the momentum tide would turn rather quickly as the refs decided it was time to take the whistle out in the Penguins favor. At six and a half minutes in, Justin Braun got called two minutes for Holding. It wasn't Holding, plain and simple. Braun, who very frequently has one hand on the stick in more often than not, successful poke check attempts, went to poke the puck from Danton Heinen and in the process, his hand made contact with Heinen. I guess that's Holding now.
Sure enough, Jeff Carter deflected an Evan Rodrigues shot that snuck through Shesterkin to regain the Penguins one goal lead. Very shortly after, Andrew Copp would signal the ref to put his hand up for a High Sticking call and before you start asking yourself "how are you going to say that wasn't High Sticking," I'm not disagreeing with it. However, right before Copp got the stick up on Jason Zucker, Mika Zibanejad got rocked in what easily could've been a penalty but the refs don't like to call penalties on Pittsburgh unless they absolutely have to. I truly hate to sound like an annoying fan who just puts all the blame on the refs but it's so obvious that some of their decisions in this series have been extremely questionable and the bias towards Pittsburgh is SO obvious.
Back to the power play Pittsburgh went and it was Evan Rodrigues again, this time finishing on his own shot to make it 3-1. The Rangers penalty killers just did not have a good enough sense of awareness there as Rodrigues should not have been left all alone in the slot after the puck bounced to him from behind the net. Rodrigues would find the back of the net for a second time with five minutes to go in the first to make it 4-1. The Rangers failed to break the puck out and Patrik Nemeth screened Shesterkin in attempt to block the shot resulting in the puck hitting the back of the net. Schneider should have been able to get the puck out but how much can you blame the 20 year old for losing a battle to the 6"6 veteran Brian Boyle? Nemeth could have prevented the whole thing if he broke the puck out himself as he had a wide open winger on the opposite half hall to begin with.
At this point, just get to intermission which is a thought this Rangers team is experiencing way too much this early in the playoffs. Head Coach Gerard Gallant would make the decision to go with Alexandar Georgiev for the rest of game three and honestly, it was the right move. We'll talk about the fifth goal when we get there but Gallant not only had to do something to get his team going but had the opportunity to rest his star goaltender who despite only playing in two games has played 10 periods of hockey up to that point. Pulling him had nothing to do with how he let in those four goals when only one of them you could really pin on him. Nemeth was at fault for the first one and probably the fourth, the penalty killers didn't do a good enough job on the third goal, only the second one you can maybe think he shouldn't have let squeeze in.
To the second we went and thankfully the Rangers came out with some fire. It took some time but Frank Vatrano finally broke the Rangers drought and put one passed Domingue to cut the lead in half. 66 seconds later, Artemi Panarin found the net to bring them within one as the team started to realize this is a third string goalie they're going against...shoot every and any puck. With four minutes to go in the second, that rule about the net coming off would come back to save us. Shocker, the Rangers were shorthanded and Kevin Rooney took the puck to the net which would become displaced just as Andrew Copp put home the rebound. I thought for sure the Rangers were going to get screwed out of this call but thankfully, the refs made the right call and Pittsburgh knew they couldn't challenge because it was exactly how they got their first goal.
A huge second period from the Rangers, probably their best period of the series and all of a sudden it's a brand new game. What would ultimately be the Rangers demise in this game was their inability to finish on their power play which is a rare problem for them. The refs finally took the whistle out, penalizing the Penguins late in the second and then twice more in the third but the Rangers couldn't find the back of the net. With three separate man advantages coming and going, the Rangers would have nothing to show. for an just over the halfway point of the period, Danton Heinen would put the Penguins back up with a goal Georgiev absolutely needed to have.
Now let's talk about Alexandar Georgiev. There shouldn't be any negative discourse, he came into a very difficult situation and while he wasn't faced with a ton of action in the second, he still made a total of 22 saves in relief of Shesterkin and some of them were pretty darn good. However, that Heinen goal absolutely should not have gone in. That's a save you need to have in a game your team just came back down from 4-1 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs. While that certainly is the case, before that puck even gets to Georgiev it's again, Patrik Nemeth not being a reliable enough presence on the back end. He gets beat to that puck and becomes incapable of getting the puck out of Pittsburgh's possession. I know the guy has been going through stuff all year and I'm sure he's a great guy but under no circumstances should be be in the lineup Monday Night.
At this point the Rangers just couldn't generate offense and sure enough, as soon as Georgiev was pulled for the extra attacker Jake Guentzel put it away as did Jeff Carter on the second try to make it 7-4. Being a Ranger fan really makes me question the strategy of pulling the goalie for the extra man. I know it sometimes works, I've seen other teams have success with it but I would truly love to know the exact success rate of this tactic with the Rangers because I'm certain it works 1 out of 10 times if not less. Just like that, what became a remarkable second period comeback slowly faded into a disappointing loss as the Rangers are now down 2-1 in the series.
With all said and done, the Rangers didn't get off to a strong start, made too many mistakes defensively, didn't play with enough fire until the second period and because of that, let the game get out of hand. Their power play not being able to convert hurt them big time but this isn't time to hit the panic button. When this team plays their game, they're the better team and the Rangers have to not only focus on themselves, but hold themselves accountable for their mistakes. Game three is over, there's nothing you can do about it now except head back to the hotel, sleep it off and get back to work today. This team has to be better for a full sixty and has to use this loss as fuel for the fire they need to bring into Game four on Monday Night.
Chris Feldman
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