DENVER — Undermanned and overwhelmed.
This was clearly going to be a tough one for the recently-hobbled Rangers, and it played out just about as expected, suffering a 3-1 loss at the hands of the Avalanche on Saturday afternoon at Pepsi Center, giving Colorado their ninth win in a row.
“You can’t find any excuses for not going after that win. It doesn’t matter if you’re missing two guys or 10 guys,” goalie Henrik Lundqvist said, his team playing without injured regulars Kevin Hayes, Marc Staal, Michael Grabner, Kevin Shattenkirk and Chris Kreider. “The mentality is that you try to get the ‘W.’ Just going to have to do it tomorrow.”
This four-game road trip continues on Sunday in Los Angeles against the big, physical Kings, though there’s a chance the Rangers (24-18-5) could get some combination of Hayes (leg contusion), Staal (hip pointer) or Grabner (flu) back into the lineup. But against an Avalanche (26-16-3) team that has surprised many by this run getting back into the playoff race, the Blueshirts just couldn’t match the opportunism in what was a relatively tight-checking game.
“In this league, when you work hard and you have a lot of confidence and things are working for you, it’s a tough team to beat — doesn’t matter what team it is,” Lundqvist said. “They have it, and we just came up a little short.”
There was some good pushback in the Rangers, having faced a 2-0 deficit by the 3:24 mark of the second period after Nathan MacKinnion continued his bid for the Hart Trophy with his 23rd goal of the year to supplement Erik Johnsson’s at 9:00 of the first period. But the Rangers got a power-play goal from Pavel Buchnevich to cut the lead to 2-1 at 6:55 of the second, and they got a few more decent looks on Colorado goalie Jonathan Bernier.
But Bernier turned aside all 11 shots he faced in the third period and collected his eighth straight win when Mikko Rantanen poured one into the empty net with 0.1 left in regulation. And now the Rangers are trying to figure out if they are made to win these tight-checking affairs.
“Our coach always says our structure has to be our best friend,” captain Ryan McDonagh said. “In that structure, you have to do the little things like shot-blocking and winning puck battles. When we’re in the right spots, we give ourselves a chance.”
Even before the Rangers were battered with injuries, they found themselves in a position where they need to play something close to mistake-free hockey in order to win. That’s just about what they did in collecting victories over the Flyers and Sabres at the Garden earlier this week.
Because it’s become clear these are not the fast, high-flying Rangers of recent vintage. Out of necessity, this group has turned to needing a simple game plan, hoping they can counter by being offensively opportunistic. And they need to stop allowing so many shots, with the Avalanche getting 37, the 12th time in the past 16 games the Rangers have given up 35 or more shots.
“There were a couple areas that we addressed before the game that we needed to do well, our forecheck being one of them. I thought we did that, which led to some turnovers,” coach Alain Vigneault said. “But give them credit, they did a good job of collapsing in front of their net and taking a lot of opportunities away. At the end of the night, it was the hard-fought game.”
The Blueshirts are not at the point of reveling in moral victories, and if they are, they’re going to come back from the trip with a clear picture of how to sell off their assets before the Feb. 26 trade deadline. Now, with all these replacements in the lineup, they’re just trying to keep their head above water.
“That’s the nature of our sport,” McDonagh said. “We spent a lot of time in our zone, but we kept competing and kept trying to make the right plays. Lost to a team that found a way to get a couple more than us.”