Rangers dominate, but can’t solve Binnington in crushing regulation loss

Hockey is horrible sometimes. The New York Rangers dominated last night’s game against the St. Louis Blues, but not only did Jordan Binnington stand on his head, but it was a fluke, weak goal that sent the Rangers home with the regulation loss. The loss is absolutely crushing, as it represented 20% of their regulation loss buffer for the rest of the season.

Alex Georgiev was solid as well, but it was the second Blues goal, the one he wants back, that wound up being the difference maker in this one. Binnington also made several big stops in the third as the Rangers pressed with the extra skater to tie it up.

Rangers 1, Blues 0 – Two Royal Road passes

This is a power move by Pavel Buchnevich along the boards, drawing two penalty killers to him before the slick pass to Ryan Strome. Strome sends a second Royal Road pass to Mika Zibanejad for the easy goal.

Rangers 1, Blues 1 – Whiffed clear

Some tough luck for Zibanejad here, as he whiffs on the clear and it goes right to Colton Parayko who puts it by Georgiev.

Blues 2, Rangers 1 – Georgiev wants this back

Georgiev allows a weak one here. Bad positioning on the faux wrap around.

Blues 3, Rangers 1 

Jaden Schwartz empty netter.

Shot Heatmap – Rangers dominate but can’t score

This is just an illustration of how much the Rangers dominated this game. I haven’t seen so few chances in front against the Rangers all season. Yet, they couldn’t get a second past Binnington.

Skater Results – Boooooring

The Rangers certainly dominated the game, but this was a very low event game. I know Sam and Joe raved about the 11 straight minutes without a whistle, but it’s not like the teams were trading chances. The Rangers really struggle with these low event games.

The Rangers have now lost three in a row in regulation, an absolute killer streak at this time of the season. The team clearly misses Chris Kreider, but they need to find a way to get points, or else this run is going to be over just as quickly as it started.