OTTAWA — Rangers coach Alain Vigneault was not trying to make an excuse for his team’s 2-1 loss to the Senators in Game 1 Thursday night at Canadian Tire Centre. Instead, he was just stating what he thought were the facts.
In this instance, that meant he thought the Senators should have been called for icing just before Erik Karlsson scored the game-winning goal with 4:11 left in regulation. The Rangers’ bench was under the impression one linesman was calling for icing while another called it off late, not giving the Rangers much time to react.
“We felt that on their winning goal, it should have been icing,” Vigneault said. “When we look at the angles we had, it should have been icing. But at the end of the day, you have to play and you have to do more than we did tonight to win.”
The game-winning sequence was a long one in the Rangers’ zone, early in which Alexandre Burrows bumped into goalie Henrik Lundqvist without a call. At one point, the puck was close to going out of the zone, with Rick Nash chasing it. But Ottawa defenseman Mark Methot made a slick play to keep it in.
Eventually Karlsson won it from behind the goal line, getting a shot to deflect in off Rangers forward Derek Stepan and then the top of Lundqvist’s back.
In the matchup of Mika Zibanejad against his old team, the Rangers center didn’t think they did anything different in defending him.
“I think you’re trying to play as hard as you can against anyone, and I didn’t think it was anything special,” Zibanejad said. “If they’re going to start worry about that I played with them before, I don’t think they have their focus.”
The Rangers went with the same lineup for the fourth straight game, since Game 4 of their first-round series against the Canadiens. This was the first loss they suffered since, so Vigneault might consider making changes for Game 2 on Saturday afternoon.
There were a handful of forwards who struggled, and before the game, when Vigneault was asked specifically about center Kevin Hayes, he was clear that he needed more.
“I feel that both offensively and defensively, there’s still more there,” Vigneault said. “I know he’s working extremely hard, but he’s got to find a way to contribute, both offensively and defensively.”
As masculine grooming is always a topic of interest during the playoffs, it should be noted Vigneault got a very short haircut sometime after Wednesday’s practice and before Thursday’s pregame briefing.
“I needed it,” he said.