Rangers play well, but luck isn’t with them in loss to Nashville

The Rangers played one of their better games last night, skating with a solid Predators team and even doing a decent job of controlling play and limiting chances against. But luck wasn’t on their side, as posts and ice shavings stopped potential goals that would have made this a tie game through two. Instead they were down two entering the third and never recovered.

The game will be defined by its old timey hockey feel, as there was a lot agitator plays out there. The dirty play was the Ryan Ellis elbow on Pavel Buchnevich should’ve been a five and a game, that was just blatant. There was another instance where Jesper Fast was mugged next to the ref and he just watched with a big bucket of popcorn. The Blueshirts were chippy too, just didn’t cross to that dirty line.

Preds 1, Rangers 0

This looks like a little bit of a weak one by Alex Georgiev. I think it got deflected though, so there’s not much he can do. But boy, if Hank let that one in…

Rangers 1, Preds 1

The Preds had a brain fart here, with two guys just watching the puck. This sprung Zibanejad and Chris Kreider for the break and the Kreider goal.

Preds 2, Rangers 1

This is why you stand up at the blue line. The Preds forced Jacob Trouba into a turnover, sprung the rush, and then Roman Josi used Adam Fox as the screen for the goal.

Preds 3, Rangers 1

Some more situational awareness by Mika Zibanejad would have been nice, but stuff like this happens. The turnover comes at a bad time and Mattias Ekholm had the breakaway.

Preds 3, Rangers 2

Finally a little bit of luck, as the pass across gets deflected and the play eventually winds up on Panarin’s stick with the Preds a little out of position. Panarin cut to the slot with space and made it a one goal game.

Preds 4, Rangers 2

Josi empty netter.

Preds 5, Rangers 2

Ellis empty netter.

Shot Heatmap

This is pretty good by the Rangers. They didn’t allow much from high priced real estate, but got a good amount of chances of their own. Luck just wasn’t on their side last night.

Skater Results

For some reason Evolving-Hockey didn’t have the skater results, but I found this tweet. As a team, the Rangers were pretty solid, but you can see where the game was won – with the depth. And yea, not the best game from Kaapo Kakko.

The Rangers get a much needed three days off before getting a three-in-four and another three days off. Maybe in this span David Quinn will figure out how to play his lines for more than 20 minutes at a time.