In watching the Rangers for the majority of the second and third periods against the Penguins at the Garden on Tuesday night, it was easy to forget the Blueshirts had won one and lost five of their first six games.
But when the night had ended, with Pittsburgh on top 5-4 following a couple of dunderhead plays by the boys in blue that allowed the reigning two-time Cup champs to tie it with 55.3 seconds remaining in regulation and then win it 58 seconds into overtime, the reality of why 1-5-1 teams are 1-5-1 was evident.
For despite playing with passion and creating electricity in the building while overcoming an early 2-0 deficit to take 3-2 and 4-3 leads, the Rangers undermined themselves yet again by making critical mistakes at the most critical moments.
Lose one way or lose another. The losses nevertheless are mounting in a hurry for only the second team in franchise history to earn fewer than four points in the first seven contests, 58 years after the woebegone 1959-60 club opened 1-6 on its way to 17-38-15 in a season in which Phil Watson was fired as coach after a 3-9-3 record through 15 games.
“To sit here and not come up with the two points with the play we played down the stretch, it hurts,” Henrik Lundqvist said. “It’s really frustrating, disappointing and hard to accept.”
It is hard to accept that the Penguins got the tying goal with the extra attacker against the same prevent defense the Rangers unfurled against the Senators in last spring’s second round that does nothing but prevent the club from winning.
This time, it was Lundqvist allowing the tying goal on a Crosby shot/pass from behind the net that banked in off the goaltender at 19:04 of the third. That came a split second after Kevin Shattenkirk played a puck low on the right side, which would have been blown dead had the Penguins played it as a hand-pass from Patric Hornqvist.
Lundqvist said he was surprised by the Shattenkirk touch and coach Alain Vigneault said: “Maybe you could say that Kevin should not have touched the puck,” but the goaltender most certainly could not have been surprised by Crosby’s bank shot. Unless maybe the King was expecting one up at his head, off which No. 87 banked one in from the rear boards at the Garden on March 31.
“He banged it off me,” Lundqvist said about this one. “It’s not the first time that happened.”
So it went to overtime. The Penguins had struck on their first shot at 43 seconds of the first (Lundqvist has allowed goals twice on both the opposition’s first shot and third shot in six starts) and then built the lead to 2-0 at 12:30. The Rangers unexpectedly came roaring back in the second period at just about the same time the Yankees came roaring back in the eighth inning in The Bronx.
David Desharnais scored at 6:02 before Pavel Buchnevich and J.T. Miller scored power-play goals within a minute in converting on both ends of a Crosby high-sticking double minor for a 3-2 lead at 8:32. The Penguins tied it at 18:01 on a power-play goal of their own after Chris Kreider’s second offensive-zone, net-front penalty negated a five-on-three that was going nowhere, anyway. But the Blueshirts persevered and captured a 4-3 lead at 8:00 of the third when Michael Grabner finished off Desharnais’ dazzling two-on-one relay.
The Rangers were on top of things. Lundqvist came up with big saves. And then, it was Crosby from behind the net and you know what, following a debatable icing call on the first shift of OT, it was Ryan McDonagh behind the net for New York, but not in a positive sense.
Because for whatever reason, the captain attempted to throw a pass straight through Phil Kessel at the left post. No go. The rubber bounced off Kessel’s lower body. A moment later, Evgeni Malkin was finishing off Kessel’s lateral at the other post.
“Obviously I let the team down in overtime,” said McDonagh, charged with six giveaways for the night. “I should be able to make a read there and keep it on the boards instead of trying to go through them.
“A costly mistake. A really, really bad hockey play by me.”
And another loss for the Rangers.