ryan mcdonagh rangers stars

Photo Credit: AP / Ron Jenkins

The Rangers went into Dallas last night trying to steal two points with half the roster comprised of Hartford or AAAA players. The result was what anyone would have expected. Dallas absolutely manhandled the Rangers all over the ice. However Henrik Lundqvist was again a difference maker, keeping the Rangers relevant enough to stay within one goal for the loss.

Our Blueshirts were badly outplayed from start to finish. The Stars finished the night with 41 shots on goal, with Hank stopped 39 of them. However 18 of them came in the first, and another 13 in the second. That’s just inexcusable. I get that we all know they are selling, but this is a poor performance all around. It’s yet another performance where they gave up 30+ shots, which is the running theme lately. The Rangers could be considered mediocre, but are downright bad right now.

On to the goals:

Rangers 1, Stars 0

The Rangers caught the Dallas forwards in a change, which gave Vinny Lettieri time to get the puck low to David Desharnais for the shot. The shot was at a bad angle and stopped, but Ben Bishop left the rebound in a bad spot and Stephen Johns let little Desharnais skate right by him to tap in the rebound.

Stars 1, Rangers 1

The Stars had an extra skater here, and the Rangers got a little unlucky. Jason Spezza won a foot race to the puck in the corner, and his centering pass was to no one. But it hit Jesper Fast’s stick and went right to Tyler Seguin. What a ripper off the short side post.

Stars 2, Rangers 1

Martin Hanzal got in behind Nick Holden for the easy deflection. I wish that wasn’t the design of the net-front play in front of Hank, but it is.

Score Adjusted Corsi (even strength)

Lol.

Scoring Chances (even strength – not score adjusted)

Woof.

Food for thought. The Stars really limited the Rangers shooters all night under Ken Hitchcock. Part of that is due to the Blueshirts preferring quality over quantity, sure. But isn’t it funny that last year’s Stars team, under Lindy Ruff, bled shots at a bottom-third rate? It’s the system. It’s the coaches.

The schedule doesn’t get any easier, either. Unless the Blueshirts get healthy, we should start expecting a good number of losses. I wish that weren’t the case. As much as I know the selling and losing is coming (and probably good for the team in the long run), I want them to win. Is this rock bottom?

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