Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images
The first period of last night’s game couldn’t have gone any better. The Rangers controlled the play, played okay defensively (there were a few breakdowns), and were able to come out of the period with a 3-1 lead. Then it all came crashing down in the second. The Rangers allowed four straight goals in the second, including two in a two minute span to allow the Caps to tie it. They never got it going after, and allowed six straight when all was said and done.
Before he was pulled, there wasn’t much Henrik Lundqvist could do though. Two goals were on the powerplay, and one other came from an unlucky timing play. In the game thread, I said this game could get ugly if the Rangers didn’t play well, and it got ugly fast. Magnus Hellberg got his first appearance as a Ranger, and was scored upon on the first two shots he faced: A breakaway and a turnover.
As always, you can view the full videos on our video page here. All GIFs are on nyrgifs.com, filtered under the date of the game. On to the goals:
Caps 1, Rangers 0
This was a bad breakdown that had a ripple effect leading to the goal. Tanner Glass wasn’t close to John Carlson, his man, throughout this shift and was caught watching the puck. That left the outlet to Carlson open, and meant Emerson Etem had to shift over. That left Taylor Chorney open with room. That forced Kevin Hayes to release Justin Williams in front, which left Williams open for the easy deflection goal.
Rangers 1, Caps 1
This was simply a brilliant play by J.T. Miller on this goal.
Rangers 2, Caps 1
Chris Kreider started this with a simply dump in after a solid zone exit from the Rangers. Kreider used his speed to recover the puck, which started a good cycle for the Rangers. Eventually, Marc Staal’s point shot was blocked and mishandled, which gave Kreider room to take the puck and move around Holtby for the goal.
Rangers 3, Caps 1
The Rangers powerplay has been solid with Dan Boyle as the trigger man on the off-wing. This was another example of that, as Mats Zuccarello got the puck from the boards to Ryan McDonagh at the point, who quickly moved it to Boyle. Boyle one-timed it by Holtby.
Caps 2, Rangers 3
Evgeny Kuznetsov came off the bench, and already had a step on Dominic Moore, who was coming off the Rangers bench. The rest of the players were covered in the defensive zone. Just some tough luck here. It was a pretty shot though.
Caps 3, Rangers 3
Nicklas Backstrom simply dumped the puck into the corner, where T.J. Oshie picked up the loose puck and simply beat Lundqvist with a backhand. Hank probably wants this one back.
Caps 4, Rangers 3
There really wasn’t much the Rangers could do on this goal. It was all timing by the Caps, who moved the puck quickly and never allowed the Rangers to adjust their coverages. Backstrom got the puck low to Johanssen, who very quickly moved the puck with authority through the slot to Alex Ovechkin on the weak side. Those two passes were very quick, and the Rangers unfortunately left Ovi open. Moore may have been a little too far over, but that’s nitpicking.
Caps 5, Rangers 3
Another powerplay, another goal. This was some nifty passing by the Caps. But this is what happens when you take penalties against the Caps and when Chris Summers is on the penalty kill.
Caps 6, Rangers 3
Mats Zuccarello missed Rick Nash on a pass to the slot, and Keith Yandle, in his attempt to keep the zone, got beat to the puck. That sprung Jason Chimera for the breakaway.
Caps 7, Rangers 3
Chris Summers turned the puck over to Kuznetsov behind the net. Kuznetsov got it to Johanssen in front, easy goal.
Shot Attempts
The Rangers actually controlled the play for the most part, but controlling play doesn’t matter if you don’t play defense. You can get all the shot attempts in the world, but if you continually leave people open in the slot, you won’t win games. Plus, this has score effects written all over it. Once the Caps took the 5-3 lead, they were focusing on defending and capitalizing.
Scoring Chances
Same thing applies here. The only difference is that when the Rangers forgot how to play defense, it wasn’t quantity of shots that killed them. It was the quality of shots.
Individual Corsi
This is skewed by score effects, as mentioned above. Honestly, not much value here in such a lopsided affair.
Shot Locations
Look at all the G’s in the Washington chart. All four even strength goals came from the slot. Bad defense.
Shift Chart
New lines, new shift chart, new issues. Chris Summers was out there against Johanssen/Kuznetsov a bunch of times. Guess that’s unavoidable if you want McDonagh/Staal against Ovechkin. It’s tough to read these shift charts when the lines change regularly.
So is this rock bottom? If not, what is rock bottom? This is a team that has had many holes masked by the goaltending of Henrik Lundqvist. People ignored it, said “a win is a win.” Well, it all catches up eventually. The Rangers need to fix their process. They aren’t playing their game anymore, and it’s killing them. Sure, there are roster issues, but the problem is execution. How do you fix the process when the players know what the process is?
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