Rangers Recap: Mile High Shake and Bake

The Rangers weren’t that great last night in Colorado against a deplete Avalanche team. Lots of sloppy passes, turnovers, and incredible rate of change of possession all led to a poor hockey game. But the Rangers came out with a win, and again sometimes that is all a team needs. They’ve needed wins, and while this one had bad process, you take the two points and run.

The brilliance of Igor Shesterkin was on display again, stopping 41 of 42 shots. Alexandar Georgiev on the other side stopped 28 of 29 in regulation/overtime was up to the task as well. The Rangers skaters simply didn’t make him work as hard. That is more about the Avalanche missing their biggest weapons and still severely outplaying the Rangers. This was unlike their matchup at MSG in October where the teams were evenly matched. It does seem the Rangers played down to their opponent again, even if it is Colorado.

Still, two points are two points. Luckily for the Rangers, their big money free agent, and perhaps the best free agent signing in New York sports history, Artemiy Panarin was able to seal it in the shootout.

One of the major positives from this game was Braden Schneider. It took time, but he has really come into his own the last month or so. His goal was a great offensive read from a player not expected to bring much offense. He now has four goals on the season, more than K’Andre Miller, Zac Jones, Ryan Lindgren, and Libor Hajek combined. He seems to only scores big moment goals, a good skill set to have. His offensive play has certainly exceeds expectations so far.

I don’t like calling out the officiating, but this was a poorly officiated game. The first official penalty didn’t get called until the 3rd period and it occurred right after an egregiously missed called on Cale Makar tripping Barclay Goodrow on a breakaway.

If the NHL wants to be taken seriously as a sports league, their officiating has to go into a full house review, because this has gotten ridiculous. I know the referees have a tough job and that the speed of the game is hard, but when something happens right in front of them, and they refuse to make a call, why are they even there?

Now the Rangers get the Devils and Toronto after this three game winning streak. Splitting these two games would be nice, but they need to wake up themselves a bit again.