Not even a double dose of double deuces down the stretch was enough to rescue the Rangers from another in what has become a disturbing early trend of disjointed and detached performances.
For while Kevin Shattenkirk was on for 5:05 of the final 10:31 (and Ryan McDonagh for 5:45 of the final 9:12), the Rangers fell to 1-3 with their 3-1 defeat at the Garden on Tuesday to No. 22’s former team from St. Louis.
The Blueshirts, who fell behind at the 0:15 mark as a direct result of an egregious Brady Skjei giveaway before knotting it soon after on Mika Zibanejad’s fourth power-play goal and fifth overall, had serious difficulty creating any kind of a flow on the attack after the Blues took a 2-1 lead on a power-play goal of their own at 13:30 of the first.
“I think we’ve been trying to stretch the rink too much,” said Shattenkirk, who recorded his third power-play assist on Zibanejad’s goal. “I’ve been a victim myself of trying to make long, home-run passes. We’re not coming up as a unit of five.
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Rangers frustration shows as they let another one slip away
No apologies necessary if you intermittently nodded off during this…
“You can see when we play the right way, how fast we look. When we use our speed to support each other, that’s when we look fast. We need to get the puck in by making simple plays and grind away.”
The Rangers did generate a few chances in the third period in tallying 16 shots against Carter Hutton. But the back-up yielded nothing, just as he had a year ago in St. Louis when his team was outshot 15-0 in the third in a 3-2 victory.
Then, Shattenkirk was on the winning side, wearing the Blue note rather than the Blueshirt. The defenseman, who played 425 games for St. Louis before a brief stop in D.C. preceded his free-agent signing with the Rangers on July 1, said that this one carried no special significance.
“Time has gone by and in my mind I’ve been separated from that team already,” Shattenkirk, whose run in St. Louis ended when he was traded as a rental to Washington two days before last season’s March 1 deadline, said before the match. “It’s going to be fun. I really just enjoy doing this, enjoy playing against my buddies and trying to come out with the upper hand.”
Two out of three for him. Three out of four (the wrong way) for his team.