Rangers Get Starry Eyed And Fall To Dallas 2-1 In The Shootout

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Here is our recap of the Rangers 2-1 shootout loss to the Dallas Stars.

Rick Nash – The lone bright spot outside of the play between the pipes for the Rangers was Rick Nash’s tying goal with 3:41 left in regulation. Nash did what he does best to score this goal; he went hard to the net. After Kari Lehtonen’s pass around the boards is stopped by JT Miller and Pavel Buchnevich, the Russian gives the puck to Brady Skjei. The young defenseman lines up a shot and it deflects off of Nash and into the back of the net. Rick has been snakebitten this season, having not scored a goal since November 15th against the Blackhawks. Hopefully, this goal will see him getting on the scoresheet more often.

Ondrej Pavelec – If this game had been played in October, the Rangers would’ve been blown out. But coming off of a 41 save performance against the defending Stanley Cup champions, Ondrej Pavelec’s confidence was certainly high and it showed in stealing a point for his club. Pavelec made numerous key saves against Dallas, including 13 stops on Jamie Benn and Tyler Seguin combined.

Pavelec would finish the game with 44 stops against his former teammate Kari Lehtonen’s Stars and was the only reason the Rangers even had a chance to tie the game in the third period.

Alain Vigneault – I have time and time again criticized the Rangers head coach for not having his players ready to go at the opening faceoff. And while you could argue, and it’s a fair argument, that the players should share a lot of the blame, the coach does not get excused after a performance like the one we saw at The Garden in this one. The Blueshirts were unable to get any kind of forecheck going in the first 40 minutes. While the third period was obviously a lot better, although compared to the first two periods that isn’t saying much, the coaching staff finally made the adjustments necessary to get the game tied. It was 40 minutes too late, however, and the coaches need to step up their game as well and start recognizing the areas of concern earlier in a game to put the team in the best position to succeed.

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Rangers, Rangers, Wherefore Art Thou? – As mentioned above, the Rangers came out flatter than a flat tire in the first two periods, and it prompted the Garden faithful to ring some boos around the World’s Most Famous Arena at the end of the second period. The team wasn’t skating, had twenty giveaways, and allowed 90 shot attempts towards the net of Ondrej Pavelec. The Rangers struggled with their starts during their October stupor, and have been better of late. But this is going to be a key area for the Rangers to clean up if they are going to make a serious push for a playoff spot in the tightly contested metro division.

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Next Game: The Blueshirts will look to bounce back on Wednesday when they face the Senators at the Canadian Tire Centre. Puck drops at 7!

LETS GO RANGERS!!

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