In New York, you would have thought a competent backup goaltender was on the summer wish list.
Apparently not. Mew York has lost two games in regulation by a aggregate 9-2 score; both losses on the backup.
On Sunday, the Columbus Blue Jackets hung a 5-1 decision on the Rangers.
Daniil Tarasov made 30 saves in the Columbus win.
“It was amazing,” Tarasov said. “For me, special. Guys helped me a lot.”
It’s difficult plaY offense when you are concerned about weak goaltending.
It was his first career NHL win
“I thought Daniil in net was outstanding,” Blue Jackets coach Brad Larsen said. “He was just very calm. He made tough saves look very easy tonight.”
Artemi Panarin scored an unassisted power play goal after the game was well out of hand. The Rangers collected one point on the scoresheet.
The Columbus strikers were Zach Werenski, Andrew Peeke, Yegor Chinakhov, Eric Robinson and Kent Johnson.
“By committee, we’re going to have to do it that way and they know that,” Larsen said. “Liam Foudy, in his first game since preseason, he had great legs. You could tell first period he was challenging the D-men with his legs. He gets to the net on his second opportunity, gets a couple assists, plus player. That’s a big night for us.”
In the understatement of the early season, the Rangers bench boss was clear.
“Not good enough, obviously,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “We were far from good enough. We were slow. I didn’t like the way we played. I like our team being an aggressive forechecking team; I didn’t see much of that. I thought we were a step behind all night from a team that played back-to-back games. Disappointed with that. The speed of our game wasn’t good.”
Jaroslav Halak made 16 saves in the loss
“I just got outplayed by their goalie,” Halak said. “I need to be better next game and hopefully down the road I can help the guys win a game, get some points. That wasn’t my best tonight.”
At this rate, Igor Shesterkin will need to play an 80-game season for the Rangers for the Rangers to have any chance at a post season.
Gallant did stand up for his goalie.
“This is far from Halak’s fault, far from Halak’s fault,” Gallant said. “I didn’t like the body language of our players. I really didn’t like it. You could see that. We were talking to the linesmen more than we were talking to our teammates. Let’s just go play the game. We’re big boys. We had some chances to get back into it. When it was 3-1 we had a couple real good chances early in the third and didn’t bury it. Then it just seemed to get away from us.”
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