There’s really something about the combination of the Rangers and playing in afternoon/early evening hockey games on the weekend. It feels like they virtually never win them. Columbus flew in late Saturday night from Columbus after getting trounced by the Pittsburgh Penguins on home ice and played what should have been a scheduled loss for them, but instead they ran the table at the Garden. Potting 5 goals against on 21 shots, timely errors, timely saves for their young goalie Tarasov–who of course got his first NHL win against the Rangers–, all of that equals a 5-1 loss for the Rangers.
Normally this early into the season, you don’t want to get too emotional, teams are still figuring out their game rhythms again, in Jaro Halak’s case, he’s learning the Rangers players and how they defend in front of him. Ultimately, he needs to be better. It’s only his 2nd start, so he can’t go anywhere but up from here. He also owned his poor performance in the post game interviews.
As for other nuance of the game, you hope and pray Filip Chytil is okay. He had an awkward accidental collision, resulting in his removal from the game after his head jerked back following the collision with Cole Sillinger. This team thrives when they have 3 good centers, and any lengthy injury is going to hurt their bottom six flow.
Gallant had to juggle things around afterward, so he brought up Barclay Goodrow to play with Sammy Blais and Vitali Kravtsov, and then started double shifting Chris Kreider on the 4th line. Thankfully the Rangers have some depth in Hartford that could help for a short while, but ultimately, you just hope for the health of Chytil and that he didn’t injure himself too badly on that play.
Last thought on this one and it’s going to be on the power play. This power play is going to be maybe the top power play in the league. The way they move, the move the puck moves, and the amount of talent on the ice all at once would very much result in an incredible unit. That said, it would be nice to see PP2 with the kids get more time. It will give the kids time to cook and give the top unit some rest.
The Rangers outshot Columbus, they out-possessed Columbus, and they deserved to win more than Columbus, but Halak couldn’t make the saves and Tarasov could. That was the difference in the game. To end on a positive, Artemiy Panarin sure is back after all of the “He looks bad” takes last season. Is “Hartemi” Panarin back?
Next up Colorado. Hold onto your butts ladies and gentlemen…
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