In Columbus, the New York Rangers came up one game short of setting a franchise record for wins, when they lost to the Blue Jackets, 4-2 on Sunday, ending a 10-game winning streak. 
“Two points, divisional opponent,” the Rangers’ Chris Kreider said. “You never want to lose a hockey game, especially since we’ve been playing well. Points matter, especially this point of the season.”
Elvis Merzlikins made 38 saves in the win,
“We are growing,” Columbus coach Pascal Vincent said. “We just learn from the past. We’ve had more success recently. There is more confidence. It’s a team that is learning and tonight was the result of those setbacks. Hopefully we’re going to keep growing. We locked it down in the third and it was good to see.”
The Blue Jackets moved to 19-28-10.
The loss did not sit well with the Rangers head coach.
“We needed to win tonight,” New York coach Peter Laviolette said. “There’s no excuses with the schedule. Everybody catches back-to-backs. I expect us to handle that, and tonight it wasn’t our best. We’ll learn from it.”
Columbus took a 1-0 lead on a strike by Dmitri Voronkov at 4:34 of the opening stanza.
“About two weeks ago he said he was going to pass more and play smarter, and it looks like he is doing that,” Voronkov said of Marchenko through a translator.
Artemi Panarin hit for his 33rd goal of the campaign, a personal high, to tie the game, 1-1, at 14:22.
“The last couple of games our starts haven’t been very good,” Kreider said. “They get the power-play goal, we fall behind. Obviously, you want to dominate games from when the puck drops.
“We’re capable of that but we’re also aware we’re playing good hockey, getting every team’s best and we have to be ready for that.”
The Rangers dropped to 39-17-3.
With 18 seconds gone in the middle frame, Kirill Marchenko reclaimed the lead for Columbus at 2-1.
The Rangers replied with a strike by Adam Edstrom at 11:11 of the second.
It fell apart for the Rangers after that.
Jack Roslovic hit 46 seconds later for a 3-2 lead to the Blue Jackets.
“To give one up that quick hurts, but the overall period they were moving out of our O-zone and getting those rushes,” the Rangers’ Adam Fox said.
Ivan Provorov added a third strike in the second period to push the lead to the 4-2 final count on the scoreboard.
“Personally, I don’t think the first was all that great, but we stepped up in the second and did a job tonight,” Roslovic said. “You’ve got to tip your hat to Elvis at the end.”
Jonathan Quick made 37 saves in the loss.
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