There may not be a home way to play and a road way to play, as goes coach Alain Vigneault’s mantra, but the Rangers way at the Garden just doesn’t seem to produce winning hockey all that often.
After having won three of four on their most recent trip to go 18-4 in the last 22 and 25-9 for the season off Broadway, the Blueshirts lost their fourth straight in regulation and fifth straight overall at MSG, this one 3-2 to the Lightning on Monday for the club’s 17th defeat (19-15-2) in 36 games on home ice.
This was one the Rangers let get away. After an impressive first period in which they used their speed and creativity to generate a half-dozen glorious opportunities but could come away no better than 1-1 after 20 minutes, the Blueshirts failed to maintain that level and instead became bogged down in a quagmire.
“Give them some credit, but I think it comes down to the fact that we stopped executing coming out of our own zone,” Derek Stepan said after Brayden Point got his second of the night at 13:21 of the third to give Tampa Bay the victory. “I talked about it before the game. When we’re sharp executing in moving pucks out of our end, we put teams on their heels.
“We did that well in the first period, but I didn’t think we were very good after that. It’s the key to our game.”
Not many Rangers at all distinguished themselves over the final 40 minutes against a desperate Lightning squad that moved into a points-tie with the Islanders for ninth place in the east, one point behind Toronto for the second wild-card berth, with the Maple Leafs having one more game remaining than their pursuers.
While Peter Budaj performed much sleight of hand during the first period in just his second start in nets since coming to Tampa Bay from Los Angeles in the Ben Bishop deal, the Rangers were their own worst enemies in failing to convert numerous opportunities by either shooting wide or stubbing their toes on attempts.
The more the unmerrier, with Stepan, Chris Kreider, Pavel Buchnevich, Mika Zibanejad and Rick Nash all culprits, but it was Jimmy Vesey who had the last great chance 2:20 into the third of what was then a 2-2 game. Driving to the right porch, Vesey was unable to direct a good shot on Budaj after Tanner Glass put the puck on his stick with a spectacular spinning feed from the left circle.
“I tried to one-time it,” said Vesey, who played 9:25 on the fourth line with Glass and Oscar Lindberg. “We had a good start, but I don’t think anybody is happy with the way we played after that.
“We let them hang around, we got sloppy in the second, turned the puck over, and then they capitalized.”
Antti Raanta, who had blanked the Lightning for 63:56 in last Monday’s 1-0 OT victory in Tampa Bay, faced only 16 shots, including three in the first period and six in the third. The Finn had little chance on the winner on which Point gained the zone on a two-on-four rush, pitched it left side to Ondrej Palat and then split the Ryan McDonagh-Marc Staal pair to redirect his winger’s pass into the net.
“They didn’t shoot at all,” Raanta said. “It was a weird game, a tough game for a goalie to play, but I thought we did enough good things in the first period that if we continued, we could win this game.”
But they didn’t. They generated little and rarely had puck possession over the final 40 minutes. They didn’t win nearly enough one-on-ones. They were blah. And their penalty kill, ranked a pedestrian 14th in the league at 80.6 percent, yielded one power play goal and has allowed five facing 15 advantages over the last five games.
“As a group, we certainly have to be better,” said Stepan, who unwittingly conspired with Kevin Hayes to allow Point to find a seam in coverage for his first-period goal that negated Steven Kampfer’s early game-opening tally. “The PK is just so important at this time of the year heading into the playoffs.”
But then, so is winning at home.