The kids may be good, but the Rangers need their veterans to win.
With the game in which their young core carried the team to at least one point in a shootout loss to the Penguins, the Rangers finally saw some life from their veteran squad, but not nearly enough as they went 3-2 to the same team fell. Sunday night in Pittsburgh.
“Our veterans know they have to be better, there is no doubt about that,” head coach David Quinn said after the loss, which dropped the Rangers to 1-3-1. “We talked to them privately. They admitted that they knew it. The good news is that these are guys who are established players in this league and are good players. The good news is that our young players are still developing and that they are playing good hockey against real players. ”
But the Rangers lost one of their most important youngsters just over halfway through the second period when 21-year-old Filip Chytil clashed with Evan Rodrigues. He hit the ice hard and was slow to get up before going to the locker room with a torso injury according to the team. Quinn did not have an update on Chytil after the game.
The Penguins came back from behind when they wiped out a 2-1 deficit to start the third period with goals from Jared McCann and Jake Guentzel. Despite a clash with the match that was a 2-2 draw in the last frame, the Rangers could not make a profit and eventually gave up Guentzel’s match winner with about 1:30 left.
“We can sit here and talk about the good things we did and the chances we had in the third period,” Quinn said. ‘But you have to win hockey games, you have to find a way to win. A man can not get a chance from the area with a minute and 30 to go. You need to be urgent, you need to know who is dangerous and just really disappointing.
“Getting in here and playing good hockey and getting away with one point is really disappointing.”
For the second game, the 20-year-olds were the only players to keep the Rangers competitive. Rookie defender K’Andre Miller broke up the plays, put his teammates on top and put Penguins star Sidu Crosby in the corners to keep the Rangers in the game.
Second-year defender Adam Fox extended his scoring streak to four games when his shot was deflected from the top of the zone at 16:36 in the first period by Harvard colleague Colin Blackwell, who had previously been promoted to the taxi group. day to make his Rangers bow.
The new looks of Blackwell, Brett Howden and Kevin Rooney, have yielded some of the Rangers’ most dangerous opportunities.
Although Ryan Strome recorded his first point of the season when he threw a thumping pluck in the fold over Penguins net-less Tristan Jarry to break a 1-1 draw at 17:17 in the second period, the Rangers simply needed more from their topses to score a win.
“We know our roles, we know our responsibilities and just could not get out of there,” said Mika Zibanejad, who had two shots on goal. “Can’t just lie down and feel sorry for yourself, you just have to work it through and get started.”
The only Rangers youngster who was not at the top of his game was rookie goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin, who turned down 16 of the 19 strokes he faced in his first rugby game of the season.
However, the Rangers had one of their better first periods of the season and took a 1-0 lead at 16:36 on Blackwell’s score. But Bryan Rust managed to tie it more than halfway through the second period on a breakaway with his second goal in as many games against the Rangers.
“Of course you get up one-nothing, you feel good about it, but I just thought we were really sloppy for about 12 minutes in the second period,” Quinn said. “You could just feel it, I knew they would get one.”