In an epic collapse, the New York Rangers took a 3-0 lead into the third period on Saturday afternoon against the Edmonton Oilers.
“There’s a lot of guys responsible,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “It’s a team collapse.”
Rather than hold the lead, the Rangers surrendered two power play goals and four goals in lose to lose, 4-3.
“We might have had some bad periods, but I don’t remember a four-goal period, so for tonight we were awful,” Gallant said. “It’s embarrassing. It’s not acceptable.”
Evan Bouchard scored twice in the third, once off the power play, to get the Oilers wihtin 3-2.
“I kind of knew as a team that goals were coming for us,” Bouchard said. “We had our chances, just couldn’t score. Lucky enough, we got one in. Once the one went in everything was going in.”
Leon Draisaitl hit for the game-winner with under three minutes left in the period for the 4-3 score.
“Big character win, but we’ve got to learn from our mistakes,” Draisaitl said. “We’ve got to learn quick too. We can’t be going down 3-0 every single game. It’s too exhausting on guys, it’s too exhausting on players. You’ve got to shorten the bench. But, like I said, really big win for us and we’ve got to build off it.”
Jack Campbell made 20 saves to get the win.
Edmonton improved to 11-10-0.
“Evan Bouchard has had a ton of chances this year, it hasn’t gone his way, but the goals that went in today they were shooter’s goals,” Oilers coach Jay Woodcroft said. “You don’t realize how much offense comes off his stick, whether it’s a good first pass or a shot from the blue line. He’d been having a tough go with getting shots blocked, but he found a way to get them on net in that third period. We don’t win the game without his effort.”
Dylan Holloway also scored in the Oilers rally.
“It’s pretty special,” Holloway said. “Cool moment. Definitely a memory and a goal that I’ll remember forever.”
New York took a 1-0 lead in the first period off a goal from Alexis Lafreniere.
“We were positive that neither one of those was a fair goal and in the end we were proved right,” Woodcroft said.
New York dropped to 10-8-4.
“They get four goals in the third period for no reason besides us giving them the opportunities,” Gallant said. “Two dumb penalties, both goals, and a couple goals in between.”
Chris Kreider and Julien Gautier scored in the middle frame to give the Rangers the 3-0 advantage.
Igor Shesterkin made 28 saves in the loss.
“Tough one, especially when we did it to ourselves,” Rangers center Mika Zibanejad said. “Just have to be better than that. We can’t just be as passive as we were. We let them back in the game and it’s hard to take that momentum back when it happens. We weren’t able to do so.”
If this does not shake up management of the Rangers organization, then just put a fork leftover from Thanksgiving in them, the season is done.
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