In New York, the visiting Philadelphia Flyers handed the Rangers an embarrassing 5-3 loss on Sunday afternoon.
It was embarrassing for their abuse of the Rangers on special teams with three power play goals and a shorthanded goal en route to a 4-0 lead in the middle frame.
“It was a funny game; more specialty teams than what we’ve seen in a long time,” Flyers coach Alain Vigneault said. “Our power play was clicking incredibly well. We were on our heels a little bit in the end but were able to finish it off.”
Matt Niskanen, Sean Couturier and Travis Konecny (power-play goal), and Michael Raffl (shorthanded) were the special teams scorers for the Flyers.
Derek Grant also scored for the Flyers.
“It’s been good (since the trade),” Grant said. “It’s always fun to jump into these rivalries in the short time here. [The Rangers] have a good team, and we played well against them these past two games, sticking together, playing fast and getting pucks deep.”
The Rangers had three of their own power goals with two coming from Mika Zibanejad and the the third from Pavel Buchnevich,
[WATCH: All Flyers vs. Rangers highlights]
Henrik Lundqvist made 21 saves in the loss.
“There’s no question special teams played a big part in this game,” Lundqvist said. “When you haven’t played in a long time, personally, you want to go out there and build a good feeling, and obviously it was pretty tough giving up three first-period goals. We took some sloppy penalties that cost us, and their power play was very good.
“I don’t think I was very good; there were a couple tough situations.”
Lundqvist had not started since a loss to the Dallas stars in early February.
“We touched on how hard a situation it is for [goalie Henrik Lundqvist],” Rangers coach David Quinn said. “Nobody is more sympathetic to the situation than I am, and I had three or four conversations with him this week. We want to put him in a situation to succeed, and I thought he was fine tonight; I didn’t think Hank was our issue.”
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