Rangers lose 3-2 in Shootout to the Red Wings

The New York Rangers lose 3-2 in a shootout to the Detroit Red Wings. The Rangers had their moments when they played great, but there were too many bad passes, good Red Wings defense and excellent goaltending that caused the Rangers to lose. Here is a breakdown of what took place.

Fast-Paced First Period

The Red Wings were the first to score after a wrist shot from Troy Stecher (1) deflected off a Rangers defenseman, Zac Jones. Adam Erne (7) assisted on the play.

Although the Rangers started out a little slow, it didn’t take long to get things going. No, they didn’t score, but the time they spent in the offensive zone showed their game was on.

There were two posts by the Rangers. Also, the Rangers are 2-for-2 on their penalty kill. Will this build on the Rangers’ good game play as the second period starts? Sort of.

Period Two

The Rangers had 18 shots on goal to the Red Wings 12, so they had that going for them. They did spend a lot of time in the offensive zone again as well, but there were several times they struggled to make plays. They allowed a total of eight giveaways so far and some of these were due to their failure of good passing. A lot of bad blind passes happened, giving the Red Wings scoring chances.

It all wasn’t that bad as the Rangers did tie the game. K’Andre Miller (4) scored on a wrap-around making it 1-1. Barclay Goodrow (11) assisted on the play.

Unfortunately, Dylan Larkin (26) made it 2-1 Red Wings at 13:48 on a wrist shot. This goal was scored only a minute and a half after Miller’s goal. Assisting on the goal were Danny DeKeyser (4) and Moritz Seider (30).

The Comeback?

Image Courtesy ofJared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images

The good news for the Rangers is Detroit has allowed 70 goals in the third and the Rangers are the fifth-best in the third period. The Rangers also lead the league with 16 come-back wins. The bad news is Thomas Greiss was amazing and one of the main reasons why the Rangers eventually lost.

A PPG by Mika Zibanejad (19), his 11th PPG this season, started a comeback for the Rangers. Zibanejad scored on a slap shot, assisted by Adam Fox (41) and Artemi Panarin (40). This was the only goal in the period and the Rangers lone power play, which they went 1-for-1.

The game went into OT, but nothing came of it. There were periods in OT where the Red Wings and the Rangers went back-and-forth. No scoring took place, which brought the game into a shootout.

The Rangers had a few of chances to win it. The first came when Larkin’s wrist shot was saved, giving Panarin the chance to win it. This didn’t happen and they continued with the shootout.

The second chance came when Erne missed wide of the net. It was Fox’s turn to go and he lost control of the puck going towards Greiss. The puck rolled off his stick and the Red Wings survived another round.

The Rangers had one more chance to win it when Greiss went down, but Ryan Strome could not capitalize on an open net shot, shooting it wide. Shortly after this, Pius Suter scored and it was up to Filip Chytil to try to keep the Rangers in it, but it was saved by Greiss.

The game started to get really intense as there were chances for each team. Both goalies, Igor Shesterkin for the Rangers and Thomas Greiss for the Red Wings, were phenomenal. Each team could have more goals, but really it was Greiss that kept the Red Wings in it with the Rangers 39 shots on goal. Also, the Red Wings had 17 blocked shots, which helped lessen the goalie’s workload.

The Rangers look to rebound against the Ottawa Senators on Sunday, February 20 at 5 p.m. ET. Will they play hard and win against a struggling team? Or will they lose another heartbreaker?

Featured Image Courtesy of Jared Silber/NHLI via Getty Images

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