It must be that a stipulation in the NHL schedule this season, that any club with a 2-0 lead must surrender said lead, and lose.
The New York Rangers took a 2-0 lead on Sunday evening after a strong first period.
For the second season in a row, the Rangers have quite literally sucked eggs in the middle frame. On Sunday, they surrendered two goals to the Detroit Red Wings, and then promptly lost in extra time, 3-2.
Alex Nedeljkovic made 27 saves for the Red Wings.
“Down 2-0 in the first can be tough mountain to climb, but we stuck with it,” Nedeljkovic said. “We have an identity that we’re trying to form here, and we felt good to get flashes of it so far this year. It’s just about doing it every single night. Even if you’re not getting the results, it’s still playing the right way. That’s how you’re going to win most nights.”
Detroit improved to 7-3-2.
“That’s what bothered me the most against Buffalo,” Detroit’s David Perron said. “We’re going to lose games, but we kind of let it get away from us. If you want him to feel good about his game, you have to help him out more than what we did there. You can lose a game, maybe at that point 5-3, 6-3, that’s fine. You can’t go to eight. That just kills his confidence. What a rebound game by him.”
The Rangers got first period goals from Kaapo Kakko and Mike Zibanejad (power play) and were in control of the 20 minutes.
The Rangers were outshot, 10-6, in the second period, and in the extra session, 4-0.
“The second period got away from us,” Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba said. “That all it takes. You have to find a way to play a whole game. I don’t think we’ve put a real consistent 60 minutes together very often this season. That’s what it takes to win in this league. We seem to have decent starts and then the second period gets away from us. Without [Halak], we probably don’t get a point tonight.”
Ya think?
In the middle frame, Detroit evened the game, 2-2, off strikes from Matt Luff and Pius Suter.
New York mustered a solid third period, but Nedeljkovic kept the score even to force the extra session.
New York dropped to 6-4-3.
Without much consistency in the early season, Rangers coach Gerard Gallant shook up the lines in the third period, to no avail.
“Brewing a little bit, for sure,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “Just tried to shake things up a little bit and see if we can wake a few guys up. [Kreider] deserved to be where he was at. He wasn’t alone.”
Dominik Kubalik hit for the game-winner in the extra session, his goal came off the power play.
“I ended up in front, and I knew that ‘DP’ just looked at me and I was hoping he was going to just put it there,” Kubalik said. “It ended up in the net, so it worked pretty well and I’m very happy about that. We deserved this. We earned it.”
Jaroslav Halak made 33 saves in the Rangers loss, and remains winless on the season. He is 0-3-1 for the Rangers, and they certainly cannot count on him to make the big save.
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