rangers vegas golden knights tony deangelo

The Rangers came into their game last night on a 4-0-1 run and were promptly smacked around by a better Vegas team. The Golden Knights didn’t even need to dominate much –although they did start off on a 13-2 shots run– as they just needed to take advantage of mistakes and simply execute.

The Blueshirts were quickly down 4-0 and then Vegas just shut it down, limiting everything to the outside. Vegas controlled quality (61.77-38.23 xGF%) while protecting that lead, ensuring the Rangers never stood a chance. There was no Montreal Miracle here.

Vegas 1, Rangers 0

Hank made a tough save here with the glove, but didn’t get all of it. Eventually in the scramble –and a nice play by Jesper Fast to tie up the stick on the rebound– Hank and Tony DeAngelo knocked it into the net.

Vegas 2, Rangers 0

I know it’s a powerplay, but that is some poor swivel-head there by Brett Howden. Yea, he had two guys, but as Steve Valliquette said in the broadcast, you have to get to the back post. He was in no-man’s land and Alex Tuch got his second in five minutes.

Vegas 3, Rangers 0

Not a good turnover by Howden, with the dangerous pass between the blue line and the top of the circle (danger zone for turnovers) with both Brady Skjei –whom Howden was targeting for the pass– and Jacob Trouba in the zone looking for offense. Reilly Smith took it to the house.

Couldn’t find a gif of this one, sorry.

Vegas 4, Rangers 0

This was a great pass by Cody Glass on the powerplay. Max Pacioretty was so low that you can’t really pin the coverage on anyone. That said, I think 28 year old Hank gets to this.

Vegas 4, Rangers 1

Brendan Lemieux cut to the net and found the seam between the defense. He had defenders around him but Trouba threaded the needle for the deflection.

Shot Heatmap

This is about what to expect from the Rangers, at least defensively. It’s not really a systems breakdown here. It’s just Vegas is good and swarms the middle of the ice. Offensively though, you usually expect the Rangers to get more quality chances. Fatigue maybe?

Skater Results

Don’t know why I haven’t included the CF% chart here, but here we are. From a CF% perspective, the Rangers were “fun” in the sense that both teams got a close to even (and high) amount of shot attempts. However Vegas got by far the better quality, hence why the xGF% chart has most of the Blueshirts firmly in “bad.” How about that Ryan Strome, though.

Vegas is a good team that just beat the confidence right out of the Rangers. This is what a fast, skilled team can do when you make mistakes. If there’s a positive here, it’s that while the Rangers certainly hemorrhaged shots, there were no real system breakdowns. It was some bad luck against, two bad mistakes, and just a tip your hat goal.

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